How did I miss the trend today? Lets go over the chart.
O - So at the open we have a solid drop down, and we already have a SL in play from before the open.
A - We make it this far and come back up. I think I remember seeing the rise be quick, but lets just focus on what is on the chart.
B - Right about here I'm still in a "short" frame of mind. I think we can either test the opening level to see if there are any buyers to take it higher, and we still have the SL in play. This does break just a few ticks higher.
C - So this bar finally closes. (but I know price is continuous)
D - We actually have a tiny RET here given that this bar opens lower than the close of C, and it also drops down another tick before going back up. If these one minute bars were packaged differently, then we might actually see this. But I guess the rule is that we have to see this on the chart we are using, meaning we need the high of the bar to be lower than the high of the previous bar once the bar is fully formed.
E - We have a bit of hesitation here for 3 minutes, and price does eventually poke out above. On the 15 sec chart, the RET was even clearer and then the move up looked like it was going up, hence why I took my actual long here.
So given that I took the long here, this is the bar I use to draw my DL. Actualy, the line doesn't even touch the low of this bar given that I get my DL from the lows down at A.
But you can see that right after my entry, price drops and breaks the line and I made a fairly quick exit for about 2.5 points loss.
F - Coming down to here, we have actually broken the previous low where we had 3 minutes of hesitation, so this is why along with the exit for a loss I also took a short. This short was of course not set up at all, it was just quick and instinctual. (my instincts of course are crap!)
G - Now here is the thing. This is where the trade to go long can be placed since we know that the ride down to F was in fact the RET. But my brain is telling me that we just rejected the level at E. Although the low of this bar ends up forming the swing point we use to draw out new DL, we cannot in fact draw this line in until we have a higher high, above E.
I am also worried that we might double top at E and come back down again, so why try for another long here?
H - Ok, so we go higher, and I can now draw in the DL using the low at F.
I - We make it this far, but come back down again. No problem, we are way above our DL and can have another RET.
J - Above here, we just barely touch the DL but go higher.
K - So I enter a long here that fills and then drops right down. In a way I guess we have already broken the DL, but we have a strong up trend now, and the little low at J could have been the low of the RET.
L - Price drops right after my entry and right about here is where the exit was since we clearly have broken the line now.
M - So here I decide to take a short. We have come down even further, and you can see that the high at K is in fact a lower higher, and we broke below the low at J as well, so this looks good.
N - This is rejected right away, and so my exit is here. This is in fact where the good place to take a long would be. But once again, that DL we have drawn in that uses the swing low below M cannot be drawn in until price goes above the high at "I", so why am I going to go long here? In fact, I even have a SL in play by this point given that I can connect my highs at "I" and "K" and this is what made me take the short.
P - So we go up quite nicely, and break through the overnight high. I draw in this little level of resistance given the sideways action, but we break above it.
Q - Given that we have cleared P, given that the trend is so strong, I want just a piece of it and here is where I got in. This bar does in fact have a RET since its low is below the previous bar high. But of course right after my entry, price goes down, and broke below the low of this bar so I was out again for a loss.
Anyway, so as obvious as it looks now that the trend was up, I didn't get in early enough, and when I did, it was exactly at an area I could call a micro top, and some of these retracements even looked like reversals which made me take a short. The longs after these retracements just weren't obvious to me until price had already cleared the previous high, and by then of course, the move had already gone quite a few points so another retracement is just around the corner, which happens right after my long is entered.
O - So at the open we have a solid drop down, and we already have a SL in play from before the open.
A - We make it this far and come back up. I think I remember seeing the rise be quick, but lets just focus on what is on the chart.
B - Right about here I'm still in a "short" frame of mind. I think we can either test the opening level to see if there are any buyers to take it higher, and we still have the SL in play. This does break just a few ticks higher.
C - So this bar finally closes. (but I know price is continuous)
D - We actually have a tiny RET here given that this bar opens lower than the close of C, and it also drops down another tick before going back up. If these one minute bars were packaged differently, then we might actually see this. But I guess the rule is that we have to see this on the chart we are using, meaning we need the high of the bar to be lower than the high of the previous bar once the bar is fully formed.
E - We have a bit of hesitation here for 3 minutes, and price does eventually poke out above. On the 15 sec chart, the RET was even clearer and then the move up looked like it was going up, hence why I took my actual long here.
So given that I took the long here, this is the bar I use to draw my DL. Actualy, the line doesn't even touch the low of this bar given that I get my DL from the lows down at A.
But you can see that right after my entry, price drops and breaks the line and I made a fairly quick exit for about 2.5 points loss.
F - Coming down to here, we have actually broken the previous low where we had 3 minutes of hesitation, so this is why along with the exit for a loss I also took a short. This short was of course not set up at all, it was just quick and instinctual. (my instincts of course are crap!)
G - Now here is the thing. This is where the trade to go long can be placed since we know that the ride down to F was in fact the RET. But my brain is telling me that we just rejected the level at E. Although the low of this bar ends up forming the swing point we use to draw out new DL, we cannot in fact draw this line in until we have a higher high, above E.
I am also worried that we might double top at E and come back down again, so why try for another long here?
H - Ok, so we go higher, and I can now draw in the DL using the low at F.
I - We make it this far, but come back down again. No problem, we are way above our DL and can have another RET.
J - Above here, we just barely touch the DL but go higher.
K - So I enter a long here that fills and then drops right down. In a way I guess we have already broken the DL, but we have a strong up trend now, and the little low at J could have been the low of the RET.
L - Price drops right after my entry and right about here is where the exit was since we clearly have broken the line now.
M - So here I decide to take a short. We have come down even further, and you can see that the high at K is in fact a lower higher, and we broke below the low at J as well, so this looks good.
N - This is rejected right away, and so my exit is here. This is in fact where the good place to take a long would be. But once again, that DL we have drawn in that uses the swing low below M cannot be drawn in until price goes above the high at "I", so why am I going to go long here? In fact, I even have a SL in play by this point given that I can connect my highs at "I" and "K" and this is what made me take the short.
P - So we go up quite nicely, and break through the overnight high. I draw in this little level of resistance given the sideways action, but we break above it.
Q - Given that we have cleared P, given that the trend is so strong, I want just a piece of it and here is where I got in. This bar does in fact have a RET since its low is below the previous bar high. But of course right after my entry, price goes down, and broke below the low of this bar so I was out again for a loss.
Anyway, so as obvious as it looks now that the trend was up, I didn't get in early enough, and when I did, it was exactly at an area I could call a micro top, and some of these retracements even looked like reversals which made me take a short. The longs after these retracements just weren't obvious to me until price had already cleared the previous high, and by then of course, the move had already gone quite a few points so another retracement is just around the corner, which happens right after my long is entered.
