What would this day look like to a day trader?

Well, the string of quotes is getting long now. wrbtrader's comment:

was discussing typical approaches to trading indexes intraday (trend lines, DOM, etc.).

When I said pros I mean't anybody who is truly serious about this stuff. This could be CTA, prop trader, systems guys, large independent traders, whatever...

This doesn't necessarily mean that they work at a bank or prop firm.


My point was that there is a very professional way to trade rates and indexes, but it involves a level of sophistication that retail is not prepared for. Stuff like

Basis spreads (listed stock and index futures differentials against dark pool liquidity/CBOE real-time cash index) [this is the actual HFT market maker spread]

Rate spreads (yield curve dynamics and ICS exchange book market action)

Index spreads (highly levered risk adjusted trading in index differentials)

In addition to these, knowledge of market structure, prop trading, and investment bank trading/market making.

This is too much for retail, but these things are obviously relevant for trading ES intraday.

You're right but I'm trying to stay within the realm of what most of us retail traders have access to and not something that the OP of this thread most likely does not have access to unless he's holding back...been pulling our leg.

wrbtrader
 
You're right but I'm trying to stay within the realm of what most of us retail traders have access to and not something that the OP of this thread most likely does not have access to unless he's holding back...been pulling our leg.

wrbtrader

Yea, I'm just trying to inject some reality into the discussion.

Would this trader have gone in to the day with a definitive guess of either "up" or "down?" Would they be reacting throughout the day? Would they have limits in place?

A smart day trader would look at the overnight and premarket selloff and most likely get short at the open to try to take advantage of the move. (cash selling AKA fundamental selling is likely after a down move).

Then they're gonna take profit and either play the range that the bottom forms in or try to get long at a low.

You can play it any way you want. You could also spread indexes and cover the winner at a market extreme, then work into a flat or directional position.

That's the higher level stuff, the technicals just tell you when it's time to do shit.
 
January 30th. S&P500.

It lost over 1% almost immediately, then gained about half of that back before noon, before losing it again by about 1pm. Then, rose to basically break even for the day.

Let's say this day trader is trading the e-mini futures contract.

Would this trader have gone in to the day with a definitive guess of either "up" or "down?" Would they be reacting throughout the day? Would they have limits in place?

Would they care about WHY the price was behaving as it was?
To answer your questions. I did trade the morning part of the RTH’s day session then stopped. I am a scalper (with 1 point being my min scalp size). In momentum moves I will scalp lock in profits over and over. I will also average down if the context is viable for doing that. I did both that morning. You can see my trades on the first chart which is RTH’s.


To answer question #2 Yes I would be reacting to price action and in fact was doing just that and any such reaction should be based upon the larger, intermediate, and immediate contexts. I would be using strategies and tactics that are sound (IMO) methodologies to extract profits from the ensuing PA.

Question 3 The limits would be based upon probabilities of PA reaching an initial reward before it would reach my SL. Limits for my SL would be based upon PA. That is, I don’t like monetary SL’s. I prefer PA SL’s.

To answer question #4 No, I would not care “why” price was doing what it was doing. I don’t care if it was a reaction to some news or anything else. I only care about reading correctly the PA in front of my eyes.

Question 1 will answer last. For question #1 look at the second chart. It is a 24 hour chart. Would I have started the day with a best guess or directional bias? Yes. When I look at the 24 hour chart I can see that for several hours there was a tight bear channel. That channel morphed into a trading range and for several hours we had TR activity up until the open of the RTH’s session. So, the larger context is a bear channel that has turned into a TR. On the open we had a gap down open on the RTH’s chart. This is a result of that bear channel going on for hours. However the Gap down open (see RTH’s chart) must be seen within the larger context from the 24 hour chart. So, what was that context? It is a bear channel that morphed into a range that had been going on for hours.

Now I view bear channels a bull flags on a larger TF. The likely BO direction of a bull flag is north. So I would be looking for a BO north as an likely event sometime during the day session. However, price had morphed into a TR several hours before the opening of the RTH’s. On the open of the RTH’s price was in the middle of that TR on the 24 hour chart. That was a broad TR. Now 80% of BO attempts (key word here is ATTEMPTS) of TR’s fail and price trades back into the TR. Eventually, one side will win and we will get a successful BO.We did get that successful BO between 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. (see 24 chart). That was the eventual BO I mentioned earlier.

So, considering this, how would I have traded. Well like I did on the first 4 bars. Trading the immediate up momentum that was an attempt by bulls to close the gap. But also realizing it was in a TR on 24 chart. And since most BO’s of TR’s fail I would follow the momentum up but expect it to fail near the top of the range on the 24 chart. So I traded long on the first 4 bars over and over. So far good. Then I made two mistakes and ended up having to correct both. I ended up fine by my last trade and ended in a good profit by noon but those two tactical mistakes costs me some profits.

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January 30th. S&P500.

It lost over 1% almost immediately, then gained about half of that back before noon, before losing it again by about 1pm. Then, rose to basically break even for the day.

Let's say this day trader is trading the e-mini futures contract.

Would this trader have gone in to the day with a definitive guess of either "up" or "down?" Would they be reacting throughout the day? Would they have limits in place?

Would they care about WHY the price was behaving as it was?
Why you keep asking the same question over and over and over and over and over? Stop it, it's nauseating.


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You clearly don't understand day trading. There may some who take a position at the beginning of the day and see where it ends up but myself and most traders I know would not. That day had a 40 point range with strong and structured legs up and down. Personally, I had 7 long and 6 short signals and ended up with the best day in weeks (except for the 24th). Bottom line, if you don't know what you're looking at, what you're looking at won't make much sense.

Are you using the DOM for signals? I didn't see anything in the chart at all except false positives.
 
Live it's going up literally at that moment, join and exit when it literally stops going up, zero BS required. Yesterday or 1hour ago has zero predictive ability.

But you can't see the top or bottom until after the fact, right?

This seems like an obvious thing that most people here don't say.
 
You clearly don't understand day trading. There may some who take a position at the beginning of the day and see where it ends up but myself and most traders I know would not. That day had a 40 point range with strong and structured legs up and down. Personally, I had 7 long and 6 short signals and ended up with the best day in weeks (except for the 24th). Bottom line, if you don't know what you're looking at, what you're looking at won't make much sense.

You can see that the legs are clearly defined after the fact. But how can you know the top or bottom until after it happens?

So you entered and closed 13 trades that day? Can you be more specific about your results? Or even what your signals are based on?

Did you win all 13 trades? If not, how many?
 
But you can't see the top or bottom until after the fact, right?

This seems like an obvious thing that most people here don't say.

Correct got to get out of the habit of seeing a top every up tick, and trust an object in motion will likely continue.

Its gone up, therefore it must go down is the bad logic why 99% lose.
 
Are you using the DOM for signals? I didn't see anything in the chart at all except false positives.
I don't know what you are seeing as "false positives" but we all see what we see in our individual context and referral points. The market has been moving quickly in recent days but sometime today I will post a chart showing my signals on the day in question and annotate which worked and which didn't. All my trades are variations of "trend pullback" but as any given trade may be in conflict with a "trend" on another, I refer to them as momentum impulses....and no, I don't include the DOM for signals.
 
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