Ok, I can't lie, I for sure had a short bias, but at least I was looking for confirmation of this first.
Once again, I will be showing 15 second inserts as I find this follows price better, and I do use it for entries, but I want to keep the one minute as my main chart because the 15 second chart can give you tunnel vision where you miss what is really going on.
A - We open up and hit a high of 91.
B - Because I have my short bias, and I see the REJ at 91, I get into a short here at 88. I have to hold it to the high at C of 90.50, 2.5 points, but I am trying to give price room and think my ultimate hard stop is the high at A of 91.
C- Luckily it quickly drops from here.
D - I continue to be patient and hold when price comes up to D, my entry point, but drops again. This bar opens and closes on the low, a good sign.
d - We ultimately hit a low here, will reference this later.
E - Price then continues up, and shoots past the high at D. In hindsight, I should have exited sooner. If I draw a SL connecting C and D, the line would break further down, but I'm looking for reasons to stay in the trade. Once the high at D is broken, I am now looking for reasons to get out, but don't until we hit E. In my head I'm thinking that we are so close to 91, that I should just hold on a bit longer to see if we form a DT, but the money risk is a bit high, so if this happens, I'm thinking I can just re-enter, so I'm out at E, looks like 89.50, a loss of -1.5 points.
F - Of course we form a double top, attaching 15 sec chart to show this. Clearly I'm hesitant to get in, maybe because I'm thinking well I just tried a short and it didn't work, maybe thinking do I really want to be shorting when it just went up 8 points. Obviously price has to turn around somewhere regardless of how far it has gone in one direction.
G - So now I watch price come all the way down, but I'm being not hard on my self at all. In fact, I have been making good progress in the past few days of just not caring. I know I'm down a few points, but really, I'm in this business for the long haul, and its better that I practice and fail than to always just stay out.
So now that we drop below the low at "d", I am looking to go short again, and I'm sad to say, I just took it. (ie. market order) Clearly this doesn't work for me. I think the important thing to learn is market orders might work at a significant place where your entry stop might not get hit and its really moving, but a market order to get into a move just because is dangerous. I'm out for a loss of -1.75.
Once again, I don't feel bad at all. Yes it was stupid, but I think I had a fairly good chance of this working since we dropped below "d", and rather than wait for a clear RET which gets me in at a worse price, get in right away. I think this might work better in case of REVs where its more important to get in. My technique I think will be as I said before, an entry so close to the level with a stop 1 point beyond the level if it doesn't bounce like expected.
H - We come all the way back up to H. 82 at the bottom is a level outlined, yesterday's high, and the low we hit was 81.25. I'm not even thinking at the time of a REV trade, but it only takes about 3 minutes to get to roughly 90 here.
I - So after H, we turn down and I note that H is lower than F, we didn't even make it to the double top at 91. I considered this short here, one point below the bar above, but I just considered it. Perhaps the exit could be at BE, but lets face it, my results show that I am mostly holding in for 2 point losses.
J - We get to 91 again, to the tick. Clearly I don't have confidence in my REV approach because I don't take the trade. I am always looking for more confirmation, and then when I have it in the form of price moving away, then I am saying price is now too far away from the entry.
I hope everyone reading learns from this stupidity. Perhaps I don't know if my plan on trading REVs is good, since I don't know what I will use to decide to take the trade or not, but I think its a good one, just needs to be more defined.
Here the bars overlap so much. In a way, this gives me more chances to enter, but it also gives me an excuse to stay out since its not dropping. Do you see the stupidity??? If I can enter again I don't because price came back up, and when it comes back up, I also don't enter because I say it hasn't gone down low enough.
Db, if you are reading, can you give me a tip about REVs? I know you mostly trade RETs, and you stay clear of ranges I think, but I'm treating this not exactly as a range, but a DT, or triple top now. How do you trade a DT or DB? The RET would be too far away from where the top or bottom is.
K - Here I mark in another short I considered. Once again, it is so far into the move, and then we have the low at 81, but I know enough to not let that stop me, to worry about what might happen. If taken, price does move against me 2 points, and ultimately the trade goes nowhere.
L - Watching very closely here as I'm still quite focused. I have my line all drawn in for the double bottom if it happens, but I just didn't know how to take this REV. Its not until M that I put in a possible trade to go long, who cares, its only a SIM trade I'm plotting in, but this goes against me 2.25 points at the worst.
This highlights the importance of taking a REV trade right at where the reversal you think will happen. In the case of a DT or DB, the level is very narrow, usually within a tick or two (meaning that if the DB happens, price doesn't go usually more than 2 or 3 ticks past the previous price). But once again, I didn't really see 81 as being all that big, so the double bottom isn't a double bottom until price goes back up, and then its gone.
N - Here is potentially a higher low from L, the double bottom. In hindsight, this is good confirmation, so once price stated to turn around back up again at 82 here, I think a long could and should have been entered. (If using the high above the bar at N, one point above, this would be 84.25 again as an entry... hard to see on the one minute, but quite clear in the 15 second chart) It works very well indeed.
O - We have this dip here, but these two bars form a REJ bar. This eventually comes down again.
P - I start tuning out now... but wake up again here at P. Thinking if I should take this trade. Do I go long? I saw a poke above 91, then down again, almost think to go short, but look what happens. It shoots up, perhaps everyone went short and its short covering? Perhaps its buyers really wanting the BO?
CONCLUSION
Sucks to lose money again as I was quite in tune with the market, so I'm inching closer.
Db's suggestion to not be in chat made me focus more, it put all the responsibility onto me. I think he was a bit surprised to hear Niko and I chatting and trading at the same time. We were quiet for the first part, but yesterday for example, neither of us did anything at the low of 35 to capture the 40 point move. I kept looking for reasons to not enter a long, but perhaps if we weren't chatting I would be forced to think hard and eventually talk myself out of talking myself out of not going long (ie. I would see and take the long). Hope that makes sense.
The drop never did happen today, if anything, we went a bit higher. No big deal, I was making sure to be open to whatever happened and although I didn't make money today, the loses were small. We are even more slightly above the channel, further away from the mean. Is a drop therefore more likely? Not sure. There could simply be a change in trend. As long as traders keep willing to pay a higher price, price will go up. But if we do turn down, the mean is certainly a place to at least hit first.
I will also have the inclination to add to a winning position, as in scaling in, because there is no sense in having only one contract when in a cascade.