@Cashish,

Yep, flat here, only the one trade.

Just observing as much as I can to understand the studies.

emini

Cashish 

Buying the "new" low works too, the hope is a deep pull back or reversal, but often I've just been mired down in rotation for hours.

But not this day, nice move.

I believe I missed a couple of opportunities. Much to learn.

I must run. Drs appt later this am.

emini

My objective for now is to get a lot of screen time. Still on SIM and will be for some time.

emini

Still comparing my entry charts to determine what best suits me.

eminitrdr 

Still comparing my entry charts to determine what best suits me.

That's time well spent IMO, your method has to fit your personality.

I believe today's movements are basically savvy traders positioning themselves for the IMS number coming out at 10am. I also believe "these guys" can throw volume at the market and get the sweet spot they most desire. I always try to "guess" the level price may be sitting on prior to a major economic report, but today (right now) I'm still unsure. My "best guess" is 1.2960 at 9:45am. This position would offer a "spike target" of that Virgin POC sitting at 1.3001 for the ALGOs when liquitity disappears during the release. We'll see what the 8:20 open brings to the fight.

Ensign updated their program and my VP studies were all WHACKED OUT yesterday, overnight they offered another update and although it's 99% better than yesterday it still doesn't draw the VPs as it did with the older version. This quirk had me a little gun shy this morning but I'm adjusting. I took a short when price came back to the POC shift. I cut the trade off at it's knees and took profits just South of the Pivot. I moved one order down to get filled on the entry, and moved two up the get filled on the exit. When price finally traded on my two original exits I knew I made a big mistake! I hate leaving that kind of money on the table but the changes in the charting program still has me a little "to cautious."

I took the goodies out of that move, I'm done. I used the US session low -1 as a stop and it held, wanted to buy anything below the value area, I was early, as always. When the US session kept traded up to 1.2915ish (Globex VWAP) I felt like it was a powder keg of stops, it was.

There's no School like the Old School

Hoping and Wishing

I have a few rules I abide by when trading, one of them is, no hoping and no wishing when it comes to managing positions. I learned long ago if I find myself hoping the market will do this or wishing the market will do that, what I'm really doing is failing to admit to myself that I'm wrong. When trading, trying to avoid being wrong is like running through a parking lot during a rain storm with the expectation of not getting wet. When I finally put two and two together and realized this correlation my trading improved. If I found myself sitting on a winner 5 or 10 ticks from my predefined target and began to notice I was hoping or wishing for a pop or a little push, I took that as a signal to close out the trade. More times than not it was the best action to take. The same held true for losing trades. If I was behind on a trade and caught myself hoping or wishing I knew I was wrong and I knew I was refusing to take the inevitable loss, I've never had a loss I didn't wish I took sooner. My trading improved because I took action when I had the thoughts of hoping or wishing the market would do something, but the action was the opposite of what I was hoping or wishing for. My Dad used to say, "shit in one hand and wish in the other, and see which one fills up first!" There's some truth in that colorful saying because one hand holds certainty and the other holds uncertainty. If I hope or wish when managing a trade, what I'm doing is shifting the responsibility of the action that needs to be taken from me to the market. I had to remember, my actions are basically the only thing I have total control of while trading and no one can control the market.

As my trading improved and my method evolved over a number of years I once again began to have feelings of wishing and hoping, but this time it was during different circumstances. I began to say to myself, "I ought to short this market," even though my indicators or method wasn't in agreement with my thoughts. Since all I have control of in the market are my actions I would refrain from acting on these feelings and stay out of the market. But time and time again the market would sell off or rally several points in the direction of the "inner feeling" I had moments ago. Slowly I began to realize I was developing an intuition regarding price movements. This intuition felt like wishing and hoping if I gave it even a moment of conscious thought, so much so I rarely acted on the impulse, but time and again these gut feeling trades proved themselves profitable. I began to trust these intuitive trades and over time I learned to trade them. Even though most of these trades came to me while my indicators were neutral I learned to take them quickly and manage them with respect. All this just kind of happened over time and on occasion out of the blue I get this funny feeling to buy or sell the market, today I rarely hesitate, I enter the trade as if it was any other valid signal, limit my risk an define my target(s).

I had such a trade Friday, it was probably the hardest of this 'class' of trade I've acted on in many years. I was up and stalking the market throughout the EU session and watched it trade in a 23 point rage for 6 hours. Just prior to the US open I had an intuitive thought to enter a long position. For the record, this is Friday October 5th less than an hour before the release of the NFP report. If I have a trade on and that trade is showing be a decent profit and a decent trend I'll hold the position into an economic report, but I can't recall entering a trade prior to a NFP report for a long long time. I entered my positions, set my stops within normal risk levels and entered targets as if it was any other trade on any ordinary day. Within a half an hour after my final entry my targets were hit and I was flat, the total adverse move was 50% of my predefined stop. Price traded on all of my targets on the 8:30am bar but 2 contracts didn't fill on the high tick and the market took 2 minutes longer to retest that high tick and fill them. It was probably more than an hour later when I thought to myself, what the hell did you just do, trade straight into the NFP report! I felt calm and collected during the whole process and was actually caught a little off guard when the numbers came out, I wasn't glued to the screen waiting for the clock to tick.

I'm posting this as an example of what I call an intuitive trade, I would have never entered any trades prior to a NFP report, ever. I still find it hard to believe I did but something compelled me to take this trade, something I really can't explain. I hope it doesn't happen again very soon.

Why it's important to track the different sessions...Globex, EU, and US.

Price kept making HHs and HLs. Important to note price couldn't pull back to +1SD in EU session and also rising POC and B Band average.

One can identify key reference levels, i.e, POC, VWAP, +1SD, +2SD, -1SD, etc for each session. Always keep in mind the 14/16 rotations that Cashish has mentioned numerous times.

emini

I'll call this the passing of the torch, from EU session to US session. I'm long here '43 (in the nose bleed section) looking for HIGHER HIGHS. IF the spot traders go stop hunting ABOVE '50 I want be with them. Give 'em time.

I can also give you 100 reasons why this trade won't work that's the risk.