A few silly ones today. At times felt as if I was chasing the trend while my third or sixth trade just holding on to those entries would have been golden (CWS or just being silly).
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NQ - Supply & Demand
- Thread starter eminiman414
- Start date
Today was price movement vs. thinking about money. Gets me every stinking time. Taking a stand starting now.
for tomorrow
looking at 3450, 3412ish and 3520ish
Right now we are sitting in a range between 13 and 02. At the moment sellers were unable to find buyers above 13 and sellers unable to find buyers below 02. The plan is for trades to either be found above 13 or below 02 and wait for the first retracement thereafter. Based on AMT I would be looking towards 3550 or 3420ish according to my TC. Price may hesitate along either way. Also more of a question are we at the midpoint of a hinge from 4/6 to 4/8?
So until trades are found above this range I do nothing.
So until trades are found above this range I do nothing.
actually the bottom of the range should be 05 with a DTDB dropping below and now we are climbing up to the top of the range.
So according to my plan I waited for price to move out of the range which it did down to 96.
Trade 1
The plan was to take the next retracement which I did entering at 3500.75. This trade I have questions on and this type of action almost gets me every time. I think the problem lies in mechanically looking for a retracement and not letting the price action tell me it is wise to enter or not. I exited the trade with a 4 point loss. I have attached 3 charts to review and gain an understanding of this type of action. Is that really a retracement starting in chart A or did we reject prices btw 96 and 3500 which would invalidate the trade? Also the second time we come back towards 3500 we instantly get rejected. I did not scratch because I was too busy thinking of where my exit would be instead of as DB says place the catastrophe stop and watch price do not relinquish control of the trade. 4 point loss should have been 1.75. I have posted the charts if anyone wants to jump in and comment.
Trade 2
Not a part of my plan and in fact thru me off even though it made a couple of points in the long run is it worth it. It caused me to miss the next trade which should have been taken and would have been the best trade of the morning for me. I went long at 3504.75 thinking that a tighter SL was broken on the down side and by then I noticed the rejection of 00 and took it long although we entered back into the overnight range. Made 2 points.
Missed Trade
An entry should have been made short at 98. Price makes a lower high and rejected the mp of the overnight range btw 13 and 05. I hesitated with this one because I was not sure if 96-98 was now the new bottom of the range since we rejected there once before. The fact that we didn't break below 96 caused me some concern with taking this trade and decided to wait for it to break through and take the next retracement thereafter. I suppose the lesson learned is that price tested out of the lower end of the range came back into the range but only made it back to the midpoint of the range making a lower high. Price then begins to move back down so I suppose the short should be taken and if we bounce at 96 we scratch for a small loss. The scratch would not have happened. The question then becomes since we shoot straight down and bounce at 86ish do we then just exit given the straight shot down or do we wait? This leads me to trade 3.
Trade 3
Similar situation to trade 1. At the bottom do we have a shift in supply in demand or is another retracement setting in. Not to focus on lines or anything but if it's tightly drawn or observed it is broken and no short/looking long. If not then we look at the sl observed attached by 09 and 03.5 as being tested on the move up. The short was entered and price immediately when in the other direction. Looking back 85 was a swing high from 4/11. Since we bounce from there do we want to short there? Took a 6.25 point loss on that one. Monopoly money. Again though should have scratched.
Trade 4
Same exact thing as trade 1 and 2. Closed out and went long exited at the drop in price making another lower high. Given how price was moving I was not comfortable took what I wanted and got out. Plus 5.75 on this trade.
So winning trades totaled 7.75 points and hanging on to losers and not scratching totaled 10.25. All in all given my mistakes I lost 2.5 points. If the two losers were scratched at worst it would have been a breakeven day.
I am not fearful to enter. I am fearful to scratch and re-enter. I do not want price to take off without me which creates a hopeful result to my entry and I hold on. I am too focused on where I want to be out instead of just watching price. I also think my focus is too narrowed on the individual movements on just the chart of the day and I "forget" where and what trades did during the previous days at certain prices.
We dropped from 98 yesterday. Today at first we bounced from 98 which should have created a hmm in my mind. Since it didn't all I was doing was looking for the retracement since price exited the overnight range. If I had a tightly drawn supply line in my head that was broken and we had the bounce at 96 which also at the time was the overnight low. Even so maybe entering wasn't necessarily the wrong thing however not scratching after the bounce at 3500 was. Even entering the long ok fine which looks more like a typical SLA entry. That gets exited immediately which begs the question of exiting a winner immediately but why not exit a loser immediately as well? If I did not question price movement and "worry" about 96 being the new bottom of the range the next short at 98 would have been taken and would have gotten me much more in the flow of price. If we do happen to bounce at 96 take the small winner or small loss and re-evaluate. Since we didn't bounce we follow along maybe with a tighter sl. We see the bounce at 85.25 pretty much at the swing high of 4/11 if we don't exit after the bounce ok but then price makes a higher low. What does that mean? Duh.
Solution 1. Have my software place an automatic catastrophe stop in and let the price action tell me what to do. Do not lose focus placing stops and wondering hmm 2.5 points, 2 points, how much am I giving price. I want to give it room but not if my entry is immediately rejected. I mean I lost 6.25 and 4 points today yet only lost a total of 2.5 points. Being out based on what the market says is an obvious duh as opposed to I only want to lose 2 points on any given trade or something like that.
Solution 2. Trust these rejections in terms of scratching and potentially invalidating a trade idea/plan. It might be better to wait it out to see a more definitive action/direction.
Solution 3. No more drawing lines intraday. No more art projects. If it's too hard to visualize a line well than that in itself should tell you something.
Solution 4. Let winning and losing trades provide you with information. A win is not just a win and a loss is not just a loss. In fact it should be nothing but information not a winner nor a loser. I fell for the same action twice in one day.
Solution 5. Don't forget what happened in previous days that could potentially mean something in the future and if it does mean something trust what you're seeing and not what you think could, would, or should happen. Keep the bigger picture in mind and keep detailed notes of the intraday movements for future reference. This is what I want to do for a living. I feel I should know what happens at "every" price and constantly have it in my mind. "Remember to remember"
I will begin to characterize my market by staying focused and being fully immersed in price and how traders trade it. Everything I have done before has been almost half-assed relying on lines as a security blanket saying ok here is the bottom of a TC or top or mean or blah blah blah but what's the price, what's going on now, what has happened there previously (explain in detail) etc etc. Today is day one but really day two. I have quit my job and have no reason not to be fully immersed in this. Monday was my bday so I took it easy. Yesterday and today no excuse.
So starting from yesterday.
Total # of trades: 6
Winning trades: 4
Losing trades: 2
Average winning trade: 5.56
Average losing trade: 5.13
Ratio avg: 1.09
Largest winning trade: 13.75
Largest losing trade: 6.25
Average time in the market: 4.4 minutes
long trades: 2 winners 0 losers
short trades: 2 winners 2 losers
Average MAE: 2.21
Average MFE: 6.67
I think that about sums it up. I am now going to review DBs walk thru/commentary of yesterdays action with more of the focus on traders and price and from there I will do a replay. In regards to the replay however, I will not post those results here. Replays will be more for application and practice and this journal will be for current activity. If anyone read this novel I thank you.
Trade 1
The plan was to take the next retracement which I did entering at 3500.75. This trade I have questions on and this type of action almost gets me every time. I think the problem lies in mechanically looking for a retracement and not letting the price action tell me it is wise to enter or not. I exited the trade with a 4 point loss. I have attached 3 charts to review and gain an understanding of this type of action. Is that really a retracement starting in chart A or did we reject prices btw 96 and 3500 which would invalidate the trade? Also the second time we come back towards 3500 we instantly get rejected. I did not scratch because I was too busy thinking of where my exit would be instead of as DB says place the catastrophe stop and watch price do not relinquish control of the trade. 4 point loss should have been 1.75. I have posted the charts if anyone wants to jump in and comment.
Trade 2
Not a part of my plan and in fact thru me off even though it made a couple of points in the long run is it worth it. It caused me to miss the next trade which should have been taken and would have been the best trade of the morning for me. I went long at 3504.75 thinking that a tighter SL was broken on the down side and by then I noticed the rejection of 00 and took it long although we entered back into the overnight range. Made 2 points.
Missed Trade
An entry should have been made short at 98. Price makes a lower high and rejected the mp of the overnight range btw 13 and 05. I hesitated with this one because I was not sure if 96-98 was now the new bottom of the range since we rejected there once before. The fact that we didn't break below 96 caused me some concern with taking this trade and decided to wait for it to break through and take the next retracement thereafter. I suppose the lesson learned is that price tested out of the lower end of the range came back into the range but only made it back to the midpoint of the range making a lower high. Price then begins to move back down so I suppose the short should be taken and if we bounce at 96 we scratch for a small loss. The scratch would not have happened. The question then becomes since we shoot straight down and bounce at 86ish do we then just exit given the straight shot down or do we wait? This leads me to trade 3.
Trade 3
Similar situation to trade 1. At the bottom do we have a shift in supply in demand or is another retracement setting in. Not to focus on lines or anything but if it's tightly drawn or observed it is broken and no short/looking long. If not then we look at the sl observed attached by 09 and 03.5 as being tested on the move up. The short was entered and price immediately when in the other direction. Looking back 85 was a swing high from 4/11. Since we bounce from there do we want to short there? Took a 6.25 point loss on that one. Monopoly money. Again though should have scratched.
Trade 4
Same exact thing as trade 1 and 2. Closed out and went long exited at the drop in price making another lower high. Given how price was moving I was not comfortable took what I wanted and got out. Plus 5.75 on this trade.
So winning trades totaled 7.75 points and hanging on to losers and not scratching totaled 10.25. All in all given my mistakes I lost 2.5 points. If the two losers were scratched at worst it would have been a breakeven day.
I am not fearful to enter. I am fearful to scratch and re-enter. I do not want price to take off without me which creates a hopeful result to my entry and I hold on. I am too focused on where I want to be out instead of just watching price. I also think my focus is too narrowed on the individual movements on just the chart of the day and I "forget" where and what trades did during the previous days at certain prices.
We dropped from 98 yesterday. Today at first we bounced from 98 which should have created a hmm in my mind. Since it didn't all I was doing was looking for the retracement since price exited the overnight range. If I had a tightly drawn supply line in my head that was broken and we had the bounce at 96 which also at the time was the overnight low. Even so maybe entering wasn't necessarily the wrong thing however not scratching after the bounce at 3500 was. Even entering the long ok fine which looks more like a typical SLA entry. That gets exited immediately which begs the question of exiting a winner immediately but why not exit a loser immediately as well? If I did not question price movement and "worry" about 96 being the new bottom of the range the next short at 98 would have been taken and would have gotten me much more in the flow of price. If we do happen to bounce at 96 take the small winner or small loss and re-evaluate. Since we didn't bounce we follow along maybe with a tighter sl. We see the bounce at 85.25 pretty much at the swing high of 4/11 if we don't exit after the bounce ok but then price makes a higher low. What does that mean? Duh.
Solution 1. Have my software place an automatic catastrophe stop in and let the price action tell me what to do. Do not lose focus placing stops and wondering hmm 2.5 points, 2 points, how much am I giving price. I want to give it room but not if my entry is immediately rejected. I mean I lost 6.25 and 4 points today yet only lost a total of 2.5 points. Being out based on what the market says is an obvious duh as opposed to I only want to lose 2 points on any given trade or something like that.
Solution 2. Trust these rejections in terms of scratching and potentially invalidating a trade idea/plan. It might be better to wait it out to see a more definitive action/direction.
Solution 3. No more drawing lines intraday. No more art projects. If it's too hard to visualize a line well than that in itself should tell you something.
Solution 4. Let winning and losing trades provide you with information. A win is not just a win and a loss is not just a loss. In fact it should be nothing but information not a winner nor a loser. I fell for the same action twice in one day.
Solution 5. Don't forget what happened in previous days that could potentially mean something in the future and if it does mean something trust what you're seeing and not what you think could, would, or should happen. Keep the bigger picture in mind and keep detailed notes of the intraday movements for future reference. This is what I want to do for a living. I feel I should know what happens at "every" price and constantly have it in my mind. "Remember to remember"
I will begin to characterize my market by staying focused and being fully immersed in price and how traders trade it. Everything I have done before has been almost half-assed relying on lines as a security blanket saying ok here is the bottom of a TC or top or mean or blah blah blah but what's the price, what's going on now, what has happened there previously (explain in detail) etc etc. Today is day one but really day two. I have quit my job and have no reason not to be fully immersed in this. Monday was my bday so I took it easy. Yesterday and today no excuse.
So starting from yesterday.
Total # of trades: 6
Winning trades: 4
Losing trades: 2
Average winning trade: 5.56
Average losing trade: 5.13
Ratio avg: 1.09
Largest winning trade: 13.75
Largest losing trade: 6.25
Average time in the market: 4.4 minutes
long trades: 2 winners 0 losers
short trades: 2 winners 2 losers
Average MAE: 2.21
Average MFE: 6.67
I think that about sums it up. I am now going to review DBs walk thru/commentary of yesterdays action with more of the focus on traders and price and from there I will do a replay. In regards to the replay however, I will not post those results here. Replays will be more for application and practice and this journal will be for current activity. If anyone read this novel I thank you.
Prep Work:
Right now we sit at 3514 and heading towards 3524/25. Above 24s I don't see much in the way in terms of getting to the top of the TC which have at around 50, maybe 3536 as a hesitation point. If we reverse from 3524 we may return to the mean of an afternoon range of yesterday which would be 3500 and if we don't stop there we then have the mean of the TC around 3485. Continuing down possible hesitations could be seen at 3480. Below 80 could see hesitations at 70,46,30 then we would hit the bottom of the TC around 14. We have also entered into the longer term TC and according to what I have drawn we neared that mean yesterday as well as the swing low from Feb. The top of the shorter term down sloping TC and The upper extreme of the longer term up channel are now at a similar location and both would imply a reversal at that extreme (again if I have this drawn correctly).
Plan is to wait for 24 or 00 and see what's going on there. If we break above we look for a retracement long. If we struggle or if traders don't want to trade above 24 we wait for the retracement and go short and see what happens as we go down the line.
Thoughts: I don't know if I analyzed this correctly but at least it gives me a general idea. Also it appears based on the numbers I have written on the downside versus the upside it appears the road to the top of the TC might be an easier road. We shall soon see I suppose.
Right now we sit at 3514 and heading towards 3524/25. Above 24s I don't see much in the way in terms of getting to the top of the TC which have at around 50, maybe 3536 as a hesitation point. If we reverse from 3524 we may return to the mean of an afternoon range of yesterday which would be 3500 and if we don't stop there we then have the mean of the TC around 3485. Continuing down possible hesitations could be seen at 3480. Below 80 could see hesitations at 70,46,30 then we would hit the bottom of the TC around 14. We have also entered into the longer term TC and according to what I have drawn we neared that mean yesterday as well as the swing low from Feb. The top of the shorter term down sloping TC and The upper extreme of the longer term up channel are now at a similar location and both would imply a reversal at that extreme (again if I have this drawn correctly).
Plan is to wait for 24 or 00 and see what's going on there. If we break above we look for a retracement long. If we struggle or if traders don't want to trade above 24 we wait for the retracement and go short and see what happens as we go down the line.
Thoughts: I don't know if I analyzed this correctly but at least it gives me a general idea. Also it appears based on the numbers I have written on the downside versus the upside it appears the road to the top of the TC might be an easier road. We shall soon see I suppose.
Created a prep work template if anyone wants to critique it.
Prep Work: 8:00am - 9:00am
1. Currently what is the current day high, low, and mean? What has happened overnight? Have any ranges formed? Hinges? How have we moved overnight?
2. What is the prior day high, low, mean? Using a 1min or 5 min interval define the price movements of yesterday.
- What are prices of interest?
- If ranges were created what were the extremes and the mean?
- If it was a trending day where and how did it travel?
- If a hinge formed at some point what was its mean?
- What happened through the morning, lunch, and afternoon?
- Where did we sit, where did we bounce, where did we consolidate
3. Use a 15min, 60 min, and Daily interval and observe what obstacles might stand in traders way.
- Where are important swing points?
- Are any ranges to be found in the area or around where price currently sits? If so what are the extremes and mean?
- Are any hinges visible? If so what is its mean?
- Are any channels visible? If so what is its upper limit, lower limit and mean?
- Where does price sit in relation to any of the findings above.
Keeping SLA in mind create a list of if/thens based on the road map created however remember to keep an open mind and let price tell you what to do.
Keep in mind that areas of value could be created during the session in which you will have to analyze and be ready for in real time. If this happens what are the extremes and what is the mean?
A 50% area of a previous move could be an area where traders continuously revert to throughout the session. Be aware of this and the price movement around this area. If this happens what does it mean?
****I completely lost sight of SLA today and it bit me. I thought too much about traders looking for and finding trades that I pretty much confused myself. If I would have stayed focused on SLA with the information of trades finding/not finding trades and where this is all taking place it actually would have been a great day. I do not know what happened however I think initially my prep was good enough if I knew how to enter a reversal. I didn't however still followed my plan initially but let a decent winner turn into a loser for no apparent reason except that fact I was trying to "figure things out too much" instead of just watching price. I got emotional after this and it was just messy after that. The goal is to have better preparation and be more in tune with what is going on. Today what DB posted in the ghost visually struck me.****
One question I have is If we are at a mean similar to what happened today after the move from 26 to 02 can/should trades be taken there? Or is it wiser to wait for another extreme to be tested? If following strict SLA there could have been a decent entry out of the area of the mean. Should those probabilities be tested or is that just a trade that should be avoided?
Prep Work: 8:00am - 9:00am
1. Currently what is the current day high, low, and mean? What has happened overnight? Have any ranges formed? Hinges? How have we moved overnight?
2. What is the prior day high, low, mean? Using a 1min or 5 min interval define the price movements of yesterday.
- What are prices of interest?
- If ranges were created what were the extremes and the mean?
- If it was a trending day where and how did it travel?
- If a hinge formed at some point what was its mean?
- What happened through the morning, lunch, and afternoon?
- Where did we sit, where did we bounce, where did we consolidate
3. Use a 15min, 60 min, and Daily interval and observe what obstacles might stand in traders way.
- Where are important swing points?
- Are any ranges to be found in the area or around where price currently sits? If so what are the extremes and mean?
- Are any hinges visible? If so what is its mean?
- Are any channels visible? If so what is its upper limit, lower limit and mean?
- Where does price sit in relation to any of the findings above.
Keeping SLA in mind create a list of if/thens based on the road map created however remember to keep an open mind and let price tell you what to do.
Keep in mind that areas of value could be created during the session in which you will have to analyze and be ready for in real time. If this happens what are the extremes and what is the mean?
A 50% area of a previous move could be an area where traders continuously revert to throughout the session. Be aware of this and the price movement around this area. If this happens what does it mean?
****I completely lost sight of SLA today and it bit me. I thought too much about traders looking for and finding trades that I pretty much confused myself. If I would have stayed focused on SLA with the information of trades finding/not finding trades and where this is all taking place it actually would have been a great day. I do not know what happened however I think initially my prep was good enough if I knew how to enter a reversal. I didn't however still followed my plan initially but let a decent winner turn into a loser for no apparent reason except that fact I was trying to "figure things out too much" instead of just watching price. I got emotional after this and it was just messy after that. The goal is to have better preparation and be more in tune with what is going on. Today what DB posted in the ghost visually struck me.****
One question I have is If we are at a mean similar to what happened today after the move from 26 to 02 can/should trades be taken there? Or is it wiser to wait for another extreme to be tested? If following strict SLA there could have been a decent entry out of the area of the mean. Should those probabilities be tested or is that just a trade that should be avoided?
and don't forget these questions.
What are they trying to achieve? Where are they doing it? Why are they doing it? What's in their way?
What are they trying to achieve? Where are they doing it? Why are they doing it? What's in their way?