These are my goals for tomorrow's session. I've been using my sim results as a measuring device for whether or not I'm doing well. And I know how DUMB that is - yikes. Tomorrow, the goal is adherence to my trading plan and to be relaxed. If I'm tense, I can't trade well. If I don't trade well, the money will not be there.
switching gears to Price Action via SLA
- Thread starter gears
- Start date
These are my goals for tomorrow's session. I've been using my sim results as a measuring device for whether or not I'm doing well. And I know how DUMB that is - yikes. Tomorrow, the goal is adherence to my trading plan and to be relaxed. If I'm tense, I can't trade well. If I don't trade well, the money will not be there.
There is a misconception by some that there are no losses. Of course there are losses. Anyone who examines the charts I've posted since July will see that. My first two trades today were losses. However, if one follows the rules scrupulously, there will be few losing trades and the losses will be minimal. Ticks.
Therefore, don't try to avoid losses. The losses will provide good information about changes in the balance between demand and supply, which is what this is all about. You want that information. But if you let it depress you, you may as well just quit for the day.
Behavior does not create patterns
Patterns are a by product of behavior
Same holds true of so called âfailedâ patterns
============
Again skip the middleman
RN
My goals for today were to be relaxed and follow the rules. I did so only partially.
With the initial up move right at the open I had a tight DL, got in at the RET and then the DL was crossed so I gave it some room and then exited - for a loss. One of my rules is to wait for the LSH area to be breached. Well - there hadn't been a LSH so I was in a conundrum. Guess I need to make a rule for that so I can be prepared for my approach next time.
Once the longer term DL was in place, I didn't trust it fully and that's on me. Yet again I made a tighter DL and when it was broken, I wasn't feeling so relaxed. But I got right back in and rode the wave some more.
The area in red is pretty much an area where I can get lost, so I just stayed out and waited. I obviously lost out on a few points, but I'd rather sit on the sidelines and not get a few points, than be chasing something.
The good thing about today is that it did give me an opportunity to have something occur that I hadn't planned for and now I can make a guideline for the next time it occurs. Also, I was shown YET AGAIN to trust the damned DL. Price practically kissed it and then kept on trucking. I see more replay in my future.
With the initial up move right at the open I had a tight DL, got in at the RET and then the DL was crossed so I gave it some room and then exited - for a loss. One of my rules is to wait for the LSH area to be breached. Well - there hadn't been a LSH so I was in a conundrum. Guess I need to make a rule for that so I can be prepared for my approach next time.
Once the longer term DL was in place, I didn't trust it fully and that's on me. Yet again I made a tighter DL and when it was broken, I wasn't feeling so relaxed. But I got right back in and rode the wave some more.
The area in red is pretty much an area where I can get lost, so I just stayed out and waited. I obviously lost out on a few points, but I'd rather sit on the sidelines and not get a few points, than be chasing something.
The good thing about today is that it did give me an opportunity to have something occur that I hadn't planned for and now I can make a guideline for the next time it occurs. Also, I was shown YET AGAIN to trust the damned DL. Price practically kissed it and then kept on trucking. I see more replay in my future.
I've been working on this too. If you look at the move off the open - the 9:33 bar is he last one with a strong close. The next bar makes 1 tick progress and the next gets hit by some selling. A stop below the 9:33 bar would never had been hit. Obviously this isn't a perfect solution but it has kept me in some of these type of moves. I haven't yet done sufficient back-testing so take it for what it is worth.
If you compare today's open with yesterday's we go a "strong" up move with both. However - on closer inspection yesterday's open was one huge up bar. Today's was a series of more manageable up bars. I believe there is usually weakness indicated in the first type of opening but strength in the second. So yesterday we should have been looking to exit at any twitch but today we should be more patient. (Again - just my thoughts and would love to hear someone else's opinion).
Adding more rules in order to insulate yourself from fear will not only not work but it will be counter-productive: you'll actually wind up being more fearful than when you started.
If you want to diminish and eliminate your fear, work toward knowledge and understanding, both of price and of yourself. You can't observe price rationally -- much less trade it -- if your mind is clouded by fear. A simple and effective way of getting over it is to go through the scratching exercise that Niko is completing. There are five rules. Follow them. If something doesn't work, instead of panicking or coming up with another rule, or 10, just scratch the trade, lean back, and either wait for the next opportunity or go back into observation mode.
You were taught this fear. You can unlearn it.
If you want to diminish and eliminate your fear, work toward knowledge and understanding, both of price and of yourself. You can't observe price rationally -- much less trade it -- if your mind is clouded by fear. A simple and effective way of getting over it is to go through the scratching exercise that Niko is completing. There are five rules. Follow them. If something doesn't work, instead of panicking or coming up with another rule, or 10, just scratch the trade, lean back, and either wait for the next opportunity or go back into observation mode.
You were taught this fear. You can unlearn it.
My intention of a rule for this scenario is so that I'm not caught off guard with "what should I do now?" You've often talked about following your trading plan, so that's what I meant. But I do see how handcuffing myself into a very tight set of rules will be confining.
I'm sure I should know this, but what are the 5 rules?
The SLA is a trading plan. Its purpose is to "persuade" you via DLs and SLs to focus on price behavior as it reflects changes in the supply/demand balance. The more lines you have and the more rules you add, the less you are looking at price and the more at your lines and rules.
I suggest you spend the rest of this week observing/trading price without any lines at all. None. Zippo. Zilch. Nada. Become sensitive to the movements themselves, not to how they interact with some line or other.
They're in the SLA pdf I uploaded to TL. See the post I made to the Ghost thread this morning.
No time like the present to put this suggestion into action. Replay session using 1/6/14.
- Price hesitated initially, but then shot up like a rocket (parabolic). Some retracement within the bar, but mostly price was saying, up.
- 3537 wasnât able to be held and price dropped even more swiftly than it had risen. SL drawn in my head.
- Some retracing and a push lower. The overnight low was around 3537 - which is also were price was at EOD for the previous dayâs session.
- Some struggle initially, but price broke through the 27 area pretty easily once it did so - and kept on going in an extremely parabolic manner.
- Price is pretty vertical, but it just keeps on going and going and going.
- Though it had been trucking, it couldnât make a LL. Itâs not going higher, but it wasnât going lower.
- Pushed down to make a new LL, but things have slowed down. Makes sense though. All of the retracing has been downward sloping which says to me - itâs not quite done.
- Some retracing and attempts to make a LL. It did happen, but price didnât stay there - immediate retracing.
- Price moved up, but at a completely different kind of pace than the downward movement and it couldnât make it past the LSH before starting back down again.
- Unable to make anything happen going up.
- Strong push down and yet another new LL. Iâm feeling kind of blind without a SL, but Iâm definitely seeing price more rather than seeing what itâs doing in relation to a line Iâve drawn.
- 3514 was pretty much rejected. Buyers and sellers werenât not staying there for now.
- Another shot down and another LL. The balance between the down moves and retraces/up moves is pretty even - no longer definitively going down.
- Another instance of price reaching a lower level, but immediately backing off and heading up.
- Trying to push price up, but itâs just kind of hanging out there - until bam - it takes off. I can âseeâ a DL.
**The last time there was a HL, it was followed by a LL before a push up. This time, there was a push up before a new LL had been established.** - It took 5 minutes to reach 17 and only 2 to get back to 12. Hmm - last effort or another way to show whoâs in charge?
- Thinking the SL would have been crossed. Two HLs with an attempt of HHs occurred in a row.
- Popped up past the LSH, but can it stay there? Seems as if the torch has been passed from short to long. Or if not long, perhaps sideways? âº
- Quite a substantial retrace or will this be another return to 3512?
- Price on a roll heading north. Had some difficulty getting through 18, but once it got through, it kept moving. The 50% area of the entire down thing is 3524.50. Will it get up to that, through it? Only time will tell.
- Back through 3518 and with a series of LHs, seems as if buyers and sellers donât like where price had been. But if Iâm mentally drawing my DL correctly, price just tested it a bit.
- Taking another shot on getting to 24.50.
- Pretty much on a 1:1 with regard to movement up and movement down.
- And then price just plummets - past the previous pop down. DL definitely crossed.
- Really trying to get price back up there, but having a heck of a time doing so. Price movement down seems to happen almost with ease. The movement up is a tick by tick basis - not fluid at all.
This resonates with me tremendously. I aspire to trade in this manner:
http://elitetrader.com/vb/showpost.php?p=3960119&postcount=538
http://elitetrader.com/vb/showpost.php?p=3960119&postcount=538