Pete's Place

I fiddled with the What's Happening Now helpers this week (price is king, these are just helpers).

I ended with something a lot more visual. Good for me, since that's how I think.

First is a fast bar chart of the NASDAQ TICK. I can see how the market thrusts. I don't use it to make predictions, but it does help with exits. I found immediately after a thrust was not a bad time to close that first portion of the position.

Second is the NASDAQ A/D line. This is just to get an overall flavor of what's going on. I also noticed that it has S/R levels during the day.

Finally I have now two T&S windows, both for the NQ, but the one on the right is filtered to show trades 10 or bigger. The one on the left shows everything. Green for at the ask, red for at the bid. It's critical to watch it near S/R levels and trendlines to see what's going on. I watch both the amount of red and green on each side, but also the speed (it scrolls one line with every trade).
 

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ok so you're putting some nice technical framework in, cool. btw, are the s/r bollinger bands of some kind? also how many timeframes do you trade? keep in mind that when trading different timeframes your risks will be different and that might mess up your whole thing unless you "equalize" the risk among timeframes somehow.
 
Quote from traderkay:

are the s/r bollinger bands of some kind? also how many timeframes do you trade?
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For S/R levels I just draw a horizontal line from prior S/R. Yesterday's high and low for sure; but sometimes there are also important levels that show up during the day. If it's obvious, I draw a horizontal line and watch how the trades go in that area.

I have bollinger bands draw on my price chart (2 and 3 deviations, 25 bars) and just use them to get a perspective on What's Happening Now.

For timeframes I scan through from 10 - 2000 tick charts. I find one that shows the days trading action cleanly. Point taken on different risks. As I build up the entry catalogue this week I'll note the timeframe of each trade.
 
Entries were great today, all following the guidelines I posted. Most of them gave me a chance to make money, which is what a good entry should do. All shown on the chart. Note, I didn't show any of the exits on the chart. Also note, I had to stop trading about 1:30pm CST.

I used all three techniques, but mostly Trend Touch.

The most pleasing thing today was that every time the little man in my head wanted to buy the new low, I looked at the rules and realized I had no justification for entry. When I *did* have justification, I went long, and it worked out.

So, off to a great start, we'll see how it goes the rest of the week.

Something about posting the rules here all in one place really helped me. I had *zero* stress with entries. Usually it drives me out of my freaking mind. It was just a rational, unemotional process.

EXITS on the other hand were emotional all day. Of course, since I have not yet developed a set of guidelines I believe in. For this week, i'll continue to work on entries. If the rest of the week goes like today, I'll move on to working on exits.
 

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Also a little side note... I've changed the background color on my charts to that puke green you've been seeing. There's a story behind that. Some years ago I visited an Air Force museum with all kinds of old Soviet equipment on display. They had an old MiG whose interior was painted that exact puke green color. The museum guy told me the color choice was the result of a psychological study that showed it provided the most calming and soothing atmosphere to pilots. I've found that it's also very nice for trading!
 
... to figure this out:

Your choices are

(1) Buy all the way down, and be right once,

(2) Sell all the way down, and be wrong once,

(3) Be indecisive, and be wrong all the time.


HINT: Try #2!!!!
 
Quote from peterfigliozzi:

... to figure this out:

Your choices are

(1) Buy all the way down, and be right once,

(2) Sell all the way down, and be wrong once,

(3) Be indecisive, and be wrong all the time.


HINT: Try #2!!!!
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I bet #2 wont work tomorrow.

In hindsight trend days are far a few especially when u only limit yourself to trading stock futures.

When u become a professional trader.. you learn that u need a full arseonal of setups and tricks for every different market scenerio. And all it comes down to is knowing what type of market scenerio we will have.

At the end of today.. any trend follower would of cleaned up selling rallies on the short side.. the bottom fishers would of got nailed.. and the range bound traders would of got eaten.

The great traders can be all of the above any day of the year.. and today they were probably trend followers.

--MIKE
 
To put it into perspective..

I bet for everytime you bought all the way down and averaged down into a huge ES position and caught a nice reversal.. you might be just as profitable as everytime you traded the right side of a nice trend.

When u trade there is no right way or wrong way. Its all about doing what your mind feels is harmonic with your emotions and consistently making a living. (for discretionary traders)


--MIKE
 
Welcome Mike,

Concerning the entry methods I'm using, "Trend Touch" does not need a trend day to work. Two reasons for this. One is that by taking "little bites" for exits, I can use it for any and all intraday trends that develop. The second reason is that it does not necessarily have to be used with an intraday trend.

I'm grooving with what you said about adapting to the market in real time. That's been a major breakthrough for me lately.
 
Quote from Trend Fader:




I bet #2 wont work tomorrow.
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It can't work or not work, it's a choice. I could sell on the first move down tommorow and be wrong. But I'd still be only wrong once. Or I could buy the first move down tommorow, and be right, but I'd still be only right once. :D
 
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