n/a

Can't disagree more with this statement. Entries, imho, are the absolute most important. A good entry is 90% of the trade. When it goes in the anticipated direction I can set/reset the stop-loss to entry and essentially run a risk-free trade. If it goes against me from the outset then most likely it invalidates the idea at that particular time and I can decide to just flatten the position or to give it some rope with a tight stop-loss.

All of my trades last week were held for an hour at maximum, some just mere minutes. I never hold overnight positions.

Monday:
Monday.JPG


Tuesday:
Tuesday.JPG


Wednesday:
Wednesday.JPG


Thursday:
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Friday - No trades:
Friday.JPG



KCalhoun said:
Additional tip

Your EXITS are far more important than entries. In early years I thought entry patterns and signals were critical. They're not.

Random entries with expert trade management and scaling would do better.

Best is strong entry setups with careful exits, re-entries, scaling and tight stops. Think in terms of sequence and process, not one off decisions.
More...
 
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KCalhoun said:
Feel free to ask questions

1. Price action and trade management is everything. Talking head commentary is bullshit.

2. Chart patterns are far less important than you'd think.

3. Successful trading is grinding alot of small trades vs swinging size.

4. Always keep TIGHT STOPS

5. See Rule #4

6. Your personal path will be unique, don't copy just one approach.

7. Pay a lot more attention to market internals $TRIN $VIX plus time of day

8. Winning trades usually feel late to enter, early to exit.

9. Start small then scale, like I did today..
View attachment 223240
View attachment 223242

10. Throw a lot of small darts and see what sticks, eg I start most trades 10-50shares and martingale in up to 500 max

11. Trade wide range clean charts vs choppy fuzzy low odds charts

12. Optional... being a badass musician helps with timing. Here's my mad sax skills... helps with the ladies too, llol
More coming...

See also http://technical.traders.com/archive/combo/display5.asp?author=Ken Calhoun
More...
Thanks these are great tips. I have a couple of questions if you don't mind:

4. Always keep TIGHT STOPS

How do you manage to keep stops tight but avoid getting stopped out to often?

11. Trade wide range clean charts vs choppy fuzzy low odds charts

What do you mean by wide range clean charts?

Many thanks.
 
Pkay said:
Thanks these are great tips. I have a couple of questions if you don't mind:

4. Always keep TIGHT STOPS

How do you manage to keep stops tight but avoid getting stopped out to often?

11. Trade wide range clean charts vs choppy fuzzy low odds charts

What do you mean by wide range clean charts?

Many thanks.
More...

Hi, thanks! By tight stops I mean inexpensive stops, like $100 max for daytrades or $300 max for swings.

How to do that will depend on your risk/reward numbers and trade setup.

My approach to help minimize shakeouts:

Patterns: minor gap continuations, cup breakouts at 2day highs, ascending triangles etc

Re wide clean charts I will look for examples to screencap this upcoming week.

Markets: strong premkt futures, out vs in days, signals from TRIN VIX support

Details: strong tape mostly green before entry, time of day all critical

Trade management for daytrading: small size wide trailing stops (50 shares with 2point trailing stop) or bigger size smaller stops (200 shares with .40cent trailing stops).
 
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vanzandt said:
Exactly, volume is key. The story stock of the day.
But hey, I'm small potatoes.
More...


Right.... also when doing daily leaderboard scans note many of the most active high volume ones, or percent gainers are shitty choppy under $10 pop and drop charts that should be avoided
 
FTDK said:
I completely agree.

The ones who do not scale down in volatile markets like these are the ones who make a giant gain the one day and blow their entire account the next day.
More...
True story. Grinder here in January, bought the consolidation and breakout in the triangle in long bonds using cash bonds. Added a little more every day. That wasn’t enough so I moved to TLT calls. Still worked but making more. Finally moved to SPX puts in March. Long story short ...14k —> 150k —> 25 cents. True story. Happy to post confirms. Bottom line. I should be punched in the dick. Risk control is king. I think it’s the most important lesson I have ever learned and I am 1000% confident I can make it back I just needed to learn this lesson. So here I am. Thank you so much to OP and others like him who post true wisdom. I also use fidelity btw. Well used to. Margin has new opinion on that for now. Lol.
 
FrankInLa said:
Can't disagree more with this statement. Entries, imho, are the absolute most important. A good entry is 90% of the trade. When it goes in the anticipated direction I can set/reset the stop-loss to entry and essentially run a risk-free trade. If it goes against me from the outset then most likely it invalidates the idea at that particular time and I can decide to just flatten the position or to give it some rope with a tight stop-loss.

All of my trades last week were held for an hour at maximum, some just mere minutes. I never hold overnight positions.

Monday:
View attachment 223391

Tuesday:
View attachment 223392

Wednesday:
View attachment 223393

Thursday:
View attachment 223394

Friday - No trades:
View attachment 223395
More...

Great post... and I applaud you for posting ib screencaps. The fact that you wisely avoided trading Friday's choppy af market, like I did (zero daytrades, did premkt & eod swing entries) totally earns my sincere respect.

ET traders take note this is Frank's first post and he did it perfectly, with ib screencap proof and very smart trade ideas. Well done, I really wish there were more like you here.

Re entries sure they're critical, I've published dozens of TASC articles on specific entry setups.

Technically it's chart selection & market internals that's most important, trading wide range high vol charts with great entry setups and a hot tape on out 2dh market days.

And exactly what you said re resetting/tightening trailing stops to where you're in the money and scaling, that's how my best daytrades work as well.

Finally someone else who trades smart, and knows their stuff. Anyone who was also smart enough to also skip Friday alone I can tell is a veteran trader. That's exactly right, it's hard to explain to inexperienced traders, that level of street smarts -- but it's essential.

My www.tradingtheopen.com live room members were like wtf wasn't I doing any live daytrading Friday and I had to explain low vol choppy af market and no high odds setups.

Let me clarify re entries vs exits. I should have said trade management (including stops, size traded etc) is more important than entry decision re do I go long and hit the ask at 22.3 vs 22.4, which is the type of thing newbs get hung up on.
 
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deltaf0rce said:
True story. Grinder here in January, bought the consolidation and breakout in the triangle in long bonds using cash bonds. Added a little more every day. That wasn’t enough so I moved to TLT calls. Still worked but making more. Finally moved to SPX puts in March. Long story short ...14k —> 150k —> 25 cents. True story. Happy to post confirms. Bottom line. I should be punched in the dick. Risk control is king. I think it’s the most important lesson I have ever learned and I am 1000% confident I can make it back I just needed to learn this lesson. So here I am. Thank you so much to OP and others like him who post true wisdom. I also use fidelity btw. Well used to. Margin has new opinion on that for now. Lol.
More...

Great story, been there too...pisses me off to be up +$700 by 10am, get overconfident and overtrade, ending the day down -$345 at 4pm.

Best fix is mostly scaling small positions so ur playing with the house's money, then tighten stops after it's run to just under whole number resistance, or 2 red 1min candles, or TRIN spikes etc
 
KCalhoun said:
Great story, been there too...pisses me off to be up +$700 by 10am, get overconfident and overtrade, ending the day down -$345 at 4pm.

Best fix is mostly scaling small positions so ur playing with the house's money, then tighten stops after it's run to just under whole number resistance, or 2 red 1min candles, or TRIN spikes etc
More...

yeah, scaling in and tight stops. My new mantra. And thx for the insight on TRIN, I’m definitely going to start watching that.
 
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