KP.... couple of comments
Excellent questions toucan... let me see if I can answer properly.
1. Yes, the noise is a huge factor.. I cannot agree more. That little double bottom at M was a bit of a stretch. I guess that to get over the fear, I am not going to stick around long enough to find out if in a trade. So in a sense, I do have a firm stop in place which would have been hit once price re-entered the range, but I think that just seeing this little double bottom might make me hit close early, taking a smaller loss than necessary. Of course if I was actively in the trade I'm not sure if I would be quick enough, but better safe then sorry. (actually I do know from the past that I usually stare for a few seconds and the stop loss is hit automatically... but perhaps the reaction times would be better now)
At this point in time though where I marked this trade at M, price hadn't been moving erratically yet to the best of my recollection. It was only after that huge 20 point bar that the whole "mood" of the market changed.
But you're right, these one minute bars tend to be "noise", which ND really got me thinking about, so they don't provide trend, but they provide great entries. The trade would really have to fit within the parameters of the 5 min trend. Hunting that short at M was failure to breach 40 over several attempts, so I think I have the wind at my back if I'm thinking about a short. The second short at P of course worked much better.
2. This is a tougher question. I don't have all the words written down of course, but to the best of my recollection, when I plot in that little arrow, it would be as if I placed the trade live. Sometimes the trade doesn't trigger, and I think in the past I may have just removed the arrow, but if it fills and yet still doesn't work, I'm fairly certain that I have been leaving them on the chart. Now don't ask me about stuff a month ago, I think I was looking at things much differently before then, but going forward, I really have a much clearer idea of what I'm looking for and I'm trying to be honest. This doesn't perhaps exactly mean that I would place the live trade just yet, but it does mean that I am seeing something that makes me think this trade here is legit. So when I look over these charts, I can almost do a tabulation of what worked and what didn't.... almost a spreadsheet in visual form.
The DL at P, this is true, I didn't have this drawn in, and I think I said this in the journal when I plotted the short at P. I wasn't looking at this DL, I was just following price and trying to figure out what its telling me (Db does say to lose the lines as soon as possible).
But at S, as price was coming down, I extended the 5 min DL even before price made it down that far. I saw in real time it bounce off. I thought in real time, before it happened, "what would happen if I went long above the high of the previous bar". I didn't mark this long onto my chart because it just isn't setup properly, but I clearly knew where such an entry would be. When these bounces happen off a 5 min trend line, my gut feeling is that they tend to work, at least for a few points, but this of course has to be tested. But yes, most of this is happening at the hard right edge. You see, I know that rules have to be followed, and taking a trade that is in the opposite direction of the trend is very risky without at least a 123 confirmation, and its especially good when you see this on the 1 minute chart. But I know that when you reach an important level, price can fully stop and reverse. If you have a clear idea of where that is, you can get away with almost a 2 point stop and get into the move almost clairvoyantly. I believe this, but I clearly cannot do it just yet.
So when I write the way I do with so many "I"'s, which seems to have pissed off some of the people reading, I'm not making this about me... I'm just trying to share what is going on in my head at the time. There has to be an "I" in there somewhere, because I am after all the one that has to place the trade. What I think matters, but what I think has to come from the statistical back knowledge of knowing what to do. I am trying to align how I think about price action with what is really happening and have this thinking be based on my analysis. So each time I say "I think", what I really will be saying in the future is that "this price action right here often leads to price dropping further, so here is a good place to go short".
I hope this sounds little better and doesn't make it seem like I'm still out to lunch on this. I cannot stress enough that I am working extremely hard to train my brain to think about what price is telling me and not to feel. In fact, once the thinking is even done, then I will just know what to do. Some setups already working like this for me because I have seen them so much, so there isn't much thinking involved, there is just doing. But to get to this auto mode, thinking is I think (tee hee) still necessary so that it can be programmed in.
You know its funny because when I lost the bulk of my money, my brain would think here is a good place to put on a trade. Then I would watch to see what happened, and after it worked, then my emotion wanted to get in on it cause I felt like I was missing out and wanted to be rewarded with my keen insight. Of course the proper place to put the trade on was gone, so when I entered, it was far too late. But I feel that if I in fact act at the same time that I think, without waiting to see what happens, perhaps this will lead to consistent profits. Now of course I am even so much better at reading price action too... but not enough has been tested yet, so I still have to think a bit more before I always just act.
3. This question confuses me a little. Today for example, no solid BOPB entires triggered that I could see. At the open, price never penetrated the DL. At "D", it blew right through the SL without offering a pullback and chance to enter. At S, same thing, we bounced off the DL. So there so far hasn't been a chance to try a BOPB entry today based on 5 min trend lines. If anything, the trendlines have provided amazing reversals, but the BOPH entry actually provides a continuation of the trend as it breaks through the line, not the reversal.
Now saying all this, there is certainly a flaw that is of the "survivor bias" type of problem. Perhaps my brain is only remembering the stuff that works better. I try and be as accurate as i can with the trades I place, and sometimes I place them but just comment that I'm only seeing where this goes, not exactly a legit trade I would put on. The best thing to do would be to sim, but I haven't been able to get it to work. My broker does provide a sim account, but for some reason, real time data doesn't transfer over into the sim account. Maybe its just a glitch I can fix though. If I simmed for a week then these results would be much better of course.
Hope this provides some answers.
