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Don't make people report you Thanks again Lance, for providing insight to your direction and focus, and affirmation that there is more than one way to succeed in this amazing game.
Edit: Your intuition with NQ is impressive. How would you characterize NQ versus crude, and how would you say that your time spent with crude has affected/influenced your ability to trade NQ, if I may ask?
I think trading Crude did help somewhat with the NQ trading. What I originally liked about Crude was that it seemed to make these nice reliable strong moves quite frequently. One of the few things in trading that I'm fairly decent at ..is in recognizing when the order flow has the type of momentum that will propel price in a directional manner..even if that moment is only for a few minutes. To me, a large percentage of the time, price movement can be fairly random and choppy. I have no "edge" in those type of conditions. Crude was an instrument that offered those good moments where I saw an obvious push and I could often time a nice entry, and get a quick 20 ticks or so. Sometimes I'd ride out bigger ones. Then a few years back, Crude seemed to lose a lot of that volatility I liked. I found myself having less opportunities and I was losing more.
That's what made me look for other instruments. Although it's extremely popular, I never really liked the ES. YM was sometimes good, but I saw real movement with NQ. It seemed to have multiple strong moves almost every day and seemed like a good match for my trading style. Initially I tried to trade Crude, NQ and YM at the same time. I found that for my system..which involves very precise entries with fairly tight stops, trading three instruments was too difficult. My timing for entries was always a little off. So, I decided to focus only on NQ for a while. Like Crude, I learned there were specific time windows where I was most likely to get a good setup. I like a few minutes into the open up until about 10:20am est. Then price tends to lose some volume and can get choppy. What would happen is I would usually have some wins in the opening 30 minutes or so..and then give it back after 10:20 am or so. Then, around 11 am there are often some very good moves. So unless I see something great between 10:20 am and 11 am, I try to stay out. Crude had a great hotzone time between 9am est and about 10:00. Then also good moves around 11 am. I notice I lose more on Mondays and Fridays. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday seem to have the best movement.
Unfortunately, I found out NQ was even more chaotic and unpredictable than Crude. If NQ were a person, it would diagnosed as a schizophrenic with multiple personality disorder. You can be in an extremely strong trend and then suddenly, for no reason, it will whipsaw you the opposite direction 30 ticks or more..in seconds. It loves to shake you out of a move..and just when you think it's reversed and you jump in to the new direction..it will slam right back into the trend and wipe out your position. It seems almost designed to steal your money..no matter what direction you go. Have I lost thousands of dollars trading NQ? Hell yes! I even went back to Crude for a while and did pretty mediocre. Then I watched back some of my recorded sessions and I began to see "patterns in the chaos." I saw when these little surprises would happen and realized, except for certain days, that it was foolish to try to hold for too many points. But, I could scalp some of these moves and understand where the retail guys stops were..that the algos love to run. So, I am getting pretty good at knowing at least where the next 10-12 ticks are going to go. Then on certain days, when there's some sort of news propelling the market..I can grab some bigger targets. But honestly, I think most traders should probably stay away from NQ. It's just too treacherous.
Cl started moving good again in the last two years or so, but I haven't gone back to it again. I would probably recommend Cl over NQ for most traders.
Here are my trades from today after Non farm payroll. I think this day holds the record for the most trades to come within 1 tick of hitting my targets. Did my 30 tick stoploss and 30 tick target method. The 12 tick scalp system has proven to be pretty inconsistent lately.
That's some professional trading right there.. Nice comeback and strong mental endurance dealing with that target drama. I enjoyed the video.
The M/NQ confused me down around the 9400's today. I couldn't tell where we were going, so I stayed out.. I'm glad I did. Anyway, just wanted to say great job. Subscribed.
I was literally thinking of you as I was getting my ass handed to me on MNQ this morning...Green a little this way then stopped, then green a little that way and stopped. I was wondering if you somehow managed to rock that action...gives me comfort that you had a little trouble too. I'm very happy for you that you stayed at it and got into the green...I had to go to work before the chop ended (down a good chunk) and didn't even have the brains to do what Zach did and not trade it.
I've had to use bigger targets and stops on MNQ too with the volatility lately.
Really liking the vids... well done today.
Craig
Until you make the Unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it Fate...
Thank you very much. Non farm days can be a mixed bag. Sometimes there's an explosive move when the news comes out and then it just chops during the Equity session. Other times there can be some good trending moves. Today was tough to figure out in the beginning.
Thanks again Lance, for providing insight to your direction and focus, and affirmation that there is more than one way to succeed in this amazing game.
. I'm very happy for you that you stayed at it and got into the green...I had to go to work before the