Strategy or Setups

[MACD]

It is like catching huge fish in ocean, pull in a bit, let the line out to tire the fish, and eventually it in the boat.

Interesting analogy -- thanks. How to captain the boat is I guess the key. Where to find the fish, what lure or bait to use, and how to guage when the fish is tired. Rewards for the good Captain and his Fisher folks.

 

[qlai]

Thank you both very much! Some good ideas to ponder.

 

[yc47ib]

I'm a relatively new trader that has switiched from FX to Futures recently. For the last 9 months I have spent my time learning the the business. I have read books, watched videos and took courses. The goal for any new trader is to find that strategy that they can consistently execute with success. I can say after 9 months I have not been able to find a strategy that works and wonder if I have wasted good time looking for something that does not exist. One thing that I have found and often hear traders refer to is Setups, traders seem to wait for the market to setup and then execute. They know what they are looking for and can tick boxes as the market is setting up hence the high and low probability setups. Is this not what the game is about? We shall see as I take you through this final or first chapter of my trading career.

I start this thread that I plan to update daily if possible with my final effort to learn to trade, I will be focusing on learning setups not strategies, I trade the ES. I invite experienced traders to contibute with wisdom and assistance if possible.

Try this:
First, find the trend direction of the next hour or half hour or so. Do the following:
on your 777 tic chart, take a side, trade your side (long or short), watch the price move, then, tell yourself whether you have found the right side (long or short), there is only two answers, you are wrong or you are right.

Then, find the pull back size of the market so that you can follow the trend almost exactly after each pull back finishes, to avoid suffering big drawbacks.

Now, you can trade ES. If you keep losing money, take the opposite side.

Of course, adding Elliot waves, channels, trend lines, MA, etc, will not harm much, but always keep a clear eye on the trend (or none-trend if the price is range bouncing).

Practice this for 1 month, you can scalp (hopefully when you are enjoying scalping, you do not get a news piece hitting the market, so to be safe, trade only the last 2 hours of the market, but be careful with all the half hour turns); do it on a larger scale chart, you can swing, even larger, overnight swing.

Some people need a few months to be good at this, some need years. But keep it simple, Oh, manage your risk, do not be stubborn. But that is another thread.

 

[FoxKestrel]

Try this:
First, find the trend direction of the next hour or half hour or so. Do the following:
on your 777 tic chart, take a side, trade your side (long or short), watch the price move, then, tell yourself whether you have found the right side (long or short), there is only two answers, you are wrong or you are right.

Then, find the pull back size of the market so that you can follow the trend almost exactly after each pull back finishes, to avoid suffering big drawbacks.

Now, you can trade ES. If you keep losing money, take the opposite side.

Of course, adding Elliot waves, channels, trend lines, MA, etc, will not harm much, but always keep a clear eye on the trend (or none-trend if the price is range bouncing).

Practice this for 1 month, you can scalp (hopefully when you are enjoying scalping, you do not get a news piece hitting the market, so to be safe, trade only the last 2 hours of the market, but be careful with all the half hour turns); do it on a larger scale chart, you can swing, even larger, overnight swing.

Some people need a few months to be good at this, some need years. But keep it simple, Oh, manage your risk, do not be stubborn. But that is another thread.

Thank you yc47ib much appreciated I’ll let you know how I get on

 

[FoxKestrel]

Thank you all for the contribution I have spent last week looking for the answer to my question and feel that I may have it wrong as some of you have raised. Strategy is key and is broad the setup is within the strategy. You must be able to look at the market and have a strategy i.e direction and where is is going then you look for setups to execute that strategy. This is where I have got to so far.

One thing that has helped me last week is Context looking at a larger time frame studying the patterns and getting a feel of what the market is trying to do.

This week I will focus more on my entries there are obviously 2 schools of thought swing breaks or pull backs. I would appreciate some of your experience using both, Pullbacks have you close to the stop loss breaks give you momentum but Im finding with break of swing entries you are likely to sit in drawdown and in an instrument like the NQ may need to have a large stop loss and hence increase your risk.