Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
New to day trading. Today, I got caught by the huge spike in volatility at the time of FOMC announcement. Being new to day trading, never saw it coming. But I have to admit, its fun watching the DOM go crazy for a couple few minutes. Wish I had recorded it. Was listening to the pit noise on TOS, volatility actually increased about 30 seconds before scheduled announcement.
Big lesson learning today, pay attention to the news/events. Several trading schools teach to ignore the market news as the market factors in all news. In less than 2 mins, ES went from about 1992 to 1998 and back to 1983.25, taking out all the stops between 1998 and 1983 in both directions.
I am glad that this happened to me in the beginning of day trading experience as my losses. Until now, I was strictly trading the charts. Now, I know that I need to develop a morning preparation plan.
What needs to be included in morning preparation plan?
My advice is to look at the higher time frames and levels.
Most traders get killed watching tick by tick.
If you look at a daily chart, nothing really that special happened.
For morning prep...know your levels and patterns that are setting up
and keep them on watch. I don't have much of a morning prep.
Most of my trades trigger pre open and during globex. Then they
play out during the day/week/month.
Trading: Oh what a tangled web I weave, When I want to take profits in trading
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Years
Posts: 1,745 since Nov 2014
Thanks Given: 3,441
Thanks Received: 3,020
I totally agree.
I tried trading the news but noticed the real intention of big players only after several hours later and often the following day. What happens around the news release is often just noise imho.
I also tried to use CNBC/Bloomberg as a confirming bias first for a long time, like most amateurs. I lost money and then became smart. I became a contrarian with news and still lost money. Lot less than before but news still mess up your head. In the end, 2weeks ago, I decided to SIMPLY NOT WATCH OR READ ANY FINANCIAL NEWS.
I feel CLUTTER FREE in my head now. It genuinely feels like a detox.
The only thing I look now is the timing of new release, just the big ones, which is hardly more than 1 or 2 per week. I try NOT to initiate new trade around that time. I don't care whether it's a beat or not. How the price reacts often many hrs later is the clue to me.
Disclaimer - I am NOT a scalper and I Fish for points and not ticks in ES.
I watch and read news only at certain times and never when I am actually trading. I try to limit my exposure to the BS, but still try to gather information and make an opinion.
Because I'm on the west coast, most of my prep for the trading day happens the night before. This is how I prepare for my manually-entered, systematically-based swing trades on stocks.
1) Check for new exit signals on existing positions, place exit orders to work at tomorrow's open
2) Check for new entry signals.
For each one
a) Filter based on liquidity and historical probabilities of each stock on the particular strategy I'm interested in
b) Determine if the strategy's filters have favorable seasonal tendencies
c) See if earnings announcements are coming up soon, avoid or prepare to hedge if they are
d) Apply money management rules to determine how many shares to buy/short
e) Determine how I might want to hedge the positions, like, is the stock optionable? Are options liquid? Can I use a zero-cost collar?
f) Confirm with sentiment indicators, fundamental ratings (short crummy stocks, buy strong stocks)
g) Check the chart for potential support/resistance, unfilled gaps, etc
h) If all is well, place a limit order to work at the market open
Then, tomorrow, at about 6:15am I remote login into my trading server and while waiting for the open I review the plan I put together the night before. Then when it opens, I work the orders, trying to get filled at the opening price or better. I'm usually done by 6:35am. Then I get on with the rest of my day. Sometimes I just go back to bed.
As far as morning rituals, etc., I pretty much roll out of bed and just execute my plan. I don't need to eat or drink anything, meditate, get in a workout, rub any lucky rabbits feet, or perform any other performance-enhancing activity. I just execute the plan I put together the night before in a sometimes semi-groggy state. I'm not day-trading so I don't need to be in peek performance mode. All of the hard decisions were already made the night before. I'm just filling orders, hopefully at an advantageous price. Eventually I'll automate this part but at this point I like being involved, for better or worse.
Please immediately edit your post to remove all references and screenshots to your product and service. As it stands right now, your post is in violation of our self-promotion rule.