Price Action Journal V1.5

<i>"My thoughts exactly Austinp. Yesterday was really wild and difficult to trade. Glad to see someone killed it though!"</i>

I don't know that anyone really "killed it" in eminis. Some people made some money... but much more was missed or lost via unrealized gains which whipped out than got booked. For all those in other threads who espouse how they are loving this wild stuff and making tons of money, where are the blotters in P&L thread to back such eager boasts?

There are a lot of traders getting wiped out right now. Any broker can confirm that. Discipline breaks down, frustration sets in and traders pull stops to avoid taking umpteen small whipsawed losses. That's when the big surge rolls against them, blows out account and they're done.

Extremely dull markets and extremely volatile markets are equally tough to trade. One offers nil profits, the other offers massive potential profit AND potential loss in equal measures. It requires the utmost degree of discipline and skill to navigate this, imo.

Good news is, we build long-term careers in normal market action. This insanity will not last much longer.
 
Quote from austinp:

I don't know that anyone really "killed it" in eminis. Some people made some money... . [/B]
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Well considering the cicumstances you still did really well. Hopefully the VIX comes down a bit, but that's just me. I know some people love this environment.
 
Quote from austinp:

<i>"Surprised I dont see more comments on today I guess..."</i>

Volatility has turned to outright violence. Looking at the charts in hindsight versus real-time speed of bars are two completely different experiences.

When we look at a static chart, it all appears linear. But some of those price bars on news releases were micro-second explosions. That's what you cannot see in hindsight.

Secondly, when price action changes direction four - five times in a morning, it confuses our senses and leads to discipline breakdown. Price action flying all around is exactly the same as flocks of birds or schools of fish swirling all around to confuse and confound their predators.

A bear chasing one fish or falcon chasing one bird for prey is usually successful. But when fish are swimming all around or flock of birds flying every which way, the predators' senses are overwhelmed. Chase two targets, they catch none.

The same principle is true for traders in wild markets: you can short all the way down or buy all the way up, but the counter-trend whipsaws blow out stops and senses at the same time.

Overall trend was down in the morning, up in the afternoon. But that doesn't mean you can blindly trust those intraday macro-trends to hold. Still must respect stops, and the deep pullbacks often hammer out stop positions before price action gets from A to B to C where it's going.

Bottom line? This wild stuff looks great on paper and tugs at the emotional heartstrings of greed in all traders. But click those entry and stop orders in, we see what reality looks like in place of theory.

Tradable? Yes. Just damn tough in its own right, and far from ideal for easy profits.
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Good points. I wasnt trying to imply that people should have made a killing, especially after reading your recap on how the price action played out.

And I agree about the hindsight thing.. Good thing I am still messing around on a sim.
 
AustinP I agree with you but I must say that the last couple of days were just amazing to me, days where if you have enough diciplane it's really hard to lose money.
Here's an example of one trade I made today, a perfect PA trade, and a good one, I must admit, in terms of entry and exit too

f_example25m_c442b04.jpg


edit: It got cut in the picture, entry was at 105.70, exit at 104.98 (7 Points trade that took about 20 seconds, you gotta love this...)
 
Quote from neekoryan:

Not meant to criticize, but why not wait till the pullback for entry on those, instead of the first leg down?
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I'm looking for critique or anything that will help.

I didn't wait for pull back because I have no idea how high it would 'pull back'. 1385 is where it stopped, but I had no previous knowledge of that...
 
Quote from Sniemiec:

I'm looking for critique or anything that will help.

I didn't wait for pull back because I have no idea how high it would 'pull back'. 1385 is where it stopped, but I had no previous knowledge of that...
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Then your stop needs to be the previous swing high. You must protect your stop if you do not want that process to continue.
 
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