Whether or not the long is closed has nothing to do with how one traces the line. If you're going to trade this mechanically, the long is closed when your DL is broken, 0939. The ret for the short is at 0941. The entry is at 0942.
Agree, currently given that price rose considerably above my entry I would have voted on holding until a break of LSL, that would have kept the trade alive in this instance. But given that I said I was gonna take EVERY line break + RET that is why this was closed and then shorted.
What I was trying to point out, probably irrelevant to the exercise as you pointed out, is that the long was good, but if one CHOOSES to plot a thigh line, probably out of fear one risks this kind of scenario.
The short is then stopped out immediately. At this point, one can wait for the SL to be broken and a new long entry to present itself at 5, or, if one is calm enough, he can note the rejection which caused the short to be stopped out in the first place, and go long on the next bar (since he's out) or even the next bar after that, figuring that he can scratch for a trivial loss if it doesn't go. Traders are clearly rejecting 76/75, so this can be a situation (which comes up fairly often) where one can forget about the lines and go with the PA unless one needs to be mechanical for some reason.
Agree, this is an attempt to try to be mechanical, as mechanical as possible, just to define the pros and cons of the pure mechanical approach. There are plenty of details, like you pointed out that could have kept the trader in the trade, but I chose to ignore them. Now, you point this out and that is great, but just this week, I would like those who signed up for team work to do the effort to try to point this stuff to see how everybody sees the market.
What prevents the trader from doing this? A fear of being wrong? A fear of failing? A fear of losing a point? That this is not a well-reasoned trade with a probability >50% of being correct? What exactly is the cost of taking it and having it not work out?
This is a very important thing to consider, I have received mails from some members regarding the issue that we are all different with different risk tolerance, but personally I think that if a member cant swallow a 1 or 2 point scratch in the NQ, then his risk tolerance is way too low to be a trader. So I think, scratching included this is the most risk adverse system one could find online.
Edit: I should also point out that the lines are intended to be aids, not indicators. If one starts focusing on the lines instead of on price, one may as well plot a bunch of moving averages. The lines are nothing more than a gauge of supply/demand imbalance. They do not provide support. They do not provide resistance. The behavior of price is always of primary importance. If the lines determine what you're doing, get rid of them.
Agree, as I said several times, thanks to you I stopped drawing the lines some weeks ago and it made a world of difference, but for those who don't even know where to start drawing a line and where to stop is that this exercise is done.
BTW, I will only do this for this week, tomorrow I have a PTA meeting so I wont be trading, so only Wed, Thu, and Fri are left. If there are no comments from those greener than me, how they expect to participate in chat. And if they plan on being eternal lurkers they will find themselves without a chat next week.