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The Narrow Road ...to consistent profits


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The Narrow Road ...to consistent profits

  #21 (permalink)
 Abde 
Stuttgart / Germany
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: FlatTrader
Broker: GFT and Interactive Brokers
Trading: ES, DAX
Frequency: Every few days
Duration: Days
Posts: 533 since Aug 2010
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podski View Post
Hi All,

Today was a sort of messy day all over the markets it seems.

Two trades only - both losers I'm afraid.


Trade 1 13:15-CET: Long (Loser -15 ticks)

Reason for Entry: Pullback in an uptrend - looking for continuation

Stop: placement at a fixed place behind entry point.

Risk wise - this is steady - however my entry was a little late.

A classic question is - where should the stop be placed in a trade like this?

My stop is sort of in no-mans land. It should either be very tight (the stop analysis in my journal suggests between 4 and 8 ticks). Or it would have been very far away. Too far.


Exit: Stop Filled

Post Trade Analysis (10-15 minutes later):
There may have been an element of boredom in this trade (looking at this market since 08:30 am).
Once the price closed below the SMA(21) it was game over and I should have gotten out manually.
It never felt or looked like a great trade.



Trade 2 13:40 CET : Short (Loser -3 ticks)

Reason for Entry: Pullback in a sudden downtrend switch.

Stop: placement at 15 ticks behind entry.

Trade went to + 12 ticks and pulled back. The market feels very jumpy and is not really trending - so my gut says get out - there will be a better entry.

Exit: Manual bail

Post Trade Analysis:
It appears was right to get out and bail on that "gut feeling" and price action reading (one bar reversal).
It was a pity that it didn't reach my target but to be honest - I never should have been in this trade.


Looking at the 15 min Chart:
This was simply a long trading day - no room for shorts really - not for the likes of me.



Why did I miss the trades of the day - again?
I can see the trades of the day as they are happening - but I am having concentration issues. It's a long day.

One of the main reasons is that I am using trend filters and they are a little slow to react.

That meant that the large morning trend move was just about over before I could get in. I'm curing myself of chasing trades so no way was I going to do that.

However - there were indications that the direction was changing. I've got to work on focus at these moments.

Simple MA-Cross indicators should alert me.

When the price is trading at my main moving average it can be some of the most boring price action. However it is also the time when the value for money in a trade is at its highest.

Does anyone have any suggestions for staying alert at these moments ??

Final Thoughts:
When I reply the day's events again in my head I feel that there is a little something missing that I used to have - funnily enough.

Firstly I'm not paying enough attention to the higher time frame. That is an issue. I find when I am looking at only the 5 minute chart that a deep pullback becomes a trend change. It shouldn't.

Secondly - I need to work on my pre-trade procedure just a little more so that I am physically more alert.

Trade well.

podski

Hi @podski,

I will try to make some suggestions that may help. First of all do you want to be alerted at a MA crossover?

Regarding your failed short: You took it just above the first hour opening range wihch is a strong support area until clearly broken. I think considering the OR will be no bad idea.

Why did I miss the trade of the day?
Here the OR would also be quite helpful. As son as price action re-enters the OR, it´s mostly a very good entry. I´m attaching a chart so you can see what I´m talking about.

May I ask Why do you use a 5 minute chart or time based charts in general? As you know the Dax is a viciously bastard with violent moves and IMO, time based candles are not beneficial regarding entry and stop loss setting. Therefore I,m also attaching an 300 Volume chart that you can see the difference. Hope you find my statement helpful or at least not distracting.

Good trades,

Abde

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  #22 (permalink)
 
podski's Avatar
 podski 
Belgium
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninjatrader
Broker: Ninjatrader Brokerage, CQG
Trading: FDAX, FDXM ...maybe
Posts: 388 since Sep 2012
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@Abde
I find your input (yesterday and a few days ago) ..

1. Very helpful
2. Very distracting ...in a good way ...

I need to scratch my head a little and get back to you !

Much appreciated !

regards

podski

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  #23 (permalink)
 
podski's Avatar
 podski 
Belgium
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninjatrader
Broker: Ninjatrader Brokerage, CQG
Trading: FDAX, FDXM ...maybe
Posts: 388 since Sep 2012
Thanks Given: 499
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Hi Everyone,

I got a lot of good feedback and also took a time to assess my trading plan. I have also changed slightly the way that I am going to continue this journal.

Any comments always welcome.

Firstly - 2013 Toolbox from @Fat Tails happened. There are many good things about this set of tools not only do they look good and work well but there is a considerable amount of information regarding how to use them both on futures.io (formerly BMT) and on the other thing ... the .. internet.

Some of the feedback that I received so far has been regarding missing some pretty obvious road signs regarding the trend, the direction of a trend, the likelihood of a trend and the overall tenor of the market. The information is too generic and useful for me to ignore. So .. I had to dig in.

The outcome is nothing earth shattering but certainly refreshing and very pleasing for me.

I now have a sort of triple screen setup.

Screen 1: Context
The overall context of the market using 15min, 30min or 60min charts covering the past few trading days or weeks.

I evaluate the context in general terms Pivot Points and VWAP. The 2011 Webinar from @Fat Tails is very useful.

Screen 2: Day Overview
I have been looking at 5 min charts for a long time and I am comfortable with how they represent price action during the day. So I keep my eye on this chart.

Screen 3 - Volume Chart:
@Abde has encouraged me to take a look at volume charts and shared his with me. I like the look of them. As with any chart if you know what you are looking for it helps a lot. I am learning to look for better entries on this chart.

Today's Charts and Trades:
The first attachment is today's context chart as it appeared at 08:30 this morning.

The Pivot Points and the overall trend were clearly down.
The price action at this early stage was at the pivot point and opened a little down.

My decision was to favor short positions.


Trade 1:
A pretty good result. +38 Points. Short from the open - exit when the price hit the bottom of the Noise Bands. This would have been one and done.

Except I am the apprentice so I get to do this all day.

Trade 2:
Much more indecisive. I pulled out at +3 ticks. MFE would have been +30 ticks but it didn't feel right.

Although I was pre-disposed to short positions and this trade was below the Noise Bands, I didn't feel comfortable shorting above the VWAP. Chickened out.


Rest of the day:
The rest of the day was incredibly quiet. I only realized late in the day that it was a US holiday. So it was bound to be quiet.

Is there a nice RSS feed that would tell me that sort of thing ???

In any case - the higher time frame trend remained bearish during most of the day even though the close was just outside the upper Noise Bands and the price action crept up and up.

Today was a success for a couple of reasons.

1. +40 ticks is not too shabby
2. I was content to tell myself to wait and understand why I was waiting - the overall context (and holiday) meant it was going to be sticky - so I was not nervously chasing my tail on the 5 Min.

It is simple stuff - the kind of thing that I was reading about on day 1 ... but I'm happy with this approach.

Trade well everyone.

podski

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  #24 (permalink)
 
Adamus's Avatar
 Adamus 
London, UK
 
Experience: Beginner
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Broker: IB/IQFeed
Trading: EUR/USD
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podski View Post
The rest of the day was incredibly quiet. I only realized late in the day that it was a US holiday. So it was bound to be quiet.

Is there a nice RSS feed that would tell me that sort of thing ???

Let me show my ignorance by asking how you get an RSS feed to tell you. The only time I tried using RSS feeds, it was some sort of clunky toolbar in firefox and it was all a bit non-intuitive.

I use forexfactory although there are many others.

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
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  #25 (permalink)
 
podski's Avatar
 podski 
Belgium
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninjatrader
Broker: Ninjatrader Brokerage, CQG
Trading: FDAX, FDXM ...maybe
Posts: 388 since Sep 2012
Thanks Given: 499
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@Adamus

I've recently started to use Chrome to its full potential - it's mobile and consistent across devices.

I don't need to be plugged into news all the time but it's nice to have a bit of focused news.

In any case (and on second thoughts) Ninjatrader is probably not the place for me to be seeing any news items but getting headlines from forexfactory is a good idea.

How do you do it?
If you setup Chrome and then add an app like Feedly to it then it will read the newsfeed from forexfactory (or FX Street) for you and display it in a prominent place (maybe your home page or just in a trader news section).

You can organize the feeds very easily. A lot has changed since the beginning of RSS.

I would like to find something low volume - with important calendar dates related to say a currency or specific instrument.

The benefits of this over just visting the forexfactory site would be

1. It would blend news from multiple places if that is what you want
2. It's google - so it's everywhere now if you need or like that

Give it a try !

podski

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  #26 (permalink)
 
podski's Avatar
 podski 
Belgium
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninjatrader
Broker: Ninjatrader Brokerage, CQG
Trading: FDAX, FDXM ...maybe
Posts: 388 since Sep 2012
Thanks Given: 499
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Hi Eveyrone,

No trades from me today but I have a couple of questions.

150 points is a big move and it seems that the world and his wife could see this coming. @GFS1 was long today but with respect I don't think he moves the market.

Chart 1: The Early Morning Context:
This morning before the open I took this snapshot and made some notes.

a. The order of the pivot points was flipped from yesterday to reflect the reversal
b. The pre-open was getting sucked down to the PP area but was trading just around the VWAP (which is not very reliable in the first 30 mins I am told). In any case it was trading above yesterdays RTH VWAP - and I am wondering if that is the significant point.

In any case - it seemed like a pretty tense day ahead to my apprentice eyes .. but .. brother was I wrong.

What else could I have seen at this early stage ? @vvhg - any ideas ??


Chart 2: End of Day:
The main question for traders who have made a trade and are either in it or want to get back in is how to maintain a long bias on a day like today. I know that this is a bit of a soft question but I am gonna ask it.

I tend to want to time it precisely - to get in at the open of the big bullish bar. Which is of course a mistake ... there were 20 of them before the big push comes. Just having a bullish bias and a comfortable stop would help.

What aspects of the session pivots do people look at to help maintain a bullish bias.

More trades from me tomorrow.

Trade Well.

podski

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  #27 (permalink)
 Abde 
Stuttgart / Germany
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: FlatTrader
Broker: GFT and Interactive Brokers
Trading: ES, DAX
Frequency: Every few days
Duration: Days
Posts: 533 since Aug 2010
Thanks Given: 2,141
Thanks Received: 729


podski View Post
The main question for traders who have made a trade and are either in it or want to get back in is how to maintain a long bias on a day like today. I know that this is a bit of a soft question but I am gonna ask it.

I tend to want to time it precisely - to get in at the open of the big bullish bar. Which is of course a mistake ... there were 20 of them before the big push comes. Just having a bullish bias and a comfortable stop would help.

What aspects of the session pivots do people look at to help maintain a bullish bias.

Hi @podski,

The first indication that it´s gonna be a bullish day was an strong breakout out of the first 5 minute OR. The second indication was that we never touched yesterday´s POC which is a also bullish. And last but not least, we also broke out of yesterday´s VAH which is a VERY bullish sign. Hope this helps a bit.

Abde

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  #28 (permalink)
 
vvhg's Avatar
 vvhg 
Northern Germany
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NT
Trading: FDAX, CL
Posts: 1,583 since Mar 2011
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podski View Post
Hi Eveyrone,

No trades from me today but I have a couple of questions.

150 points is a big move and it seems that the world and his wife could see this coming. @GFS1 was long today but with respect I don't think he moves the market.

Chart 1: The Early Morning Context:
This morning before the open I took this snapshot and made some notes.

a. The order of the pivot points was flipped from yesterday to reflect the reversal
b. The pre-open was getting sucked down to the PP area but was trading just around the VWAP (which is not very reliable in the first 30 mins I am told). In any case it was trading above yesterdays RTH VWAP - and I am wondering if that is the significant point.

In any case - it seemed like a pretty tense day ahead to my apprentice eyes .. but .. brother was I wrong.

What else could I have seen at this early stage ? @vvhg - any ideas ??


Chart 2: End of Day:
The main question for traders who have made a trade and are either in it or want to get back in is how to maintain a long bias on a day like today. I know that this is a bit of a soft question but I am gonna ask it.

I tend to want to time it precisely - to get in at the open of the big bullish bar. Which is of course a mistake ... there were 20 of them before the big push comes. Just having a bullish bias and a comfortable stop would help.

What aspects of the session pivots do people look at to help maintain a bullish bias.

More trades from me tomorrow.

Trade Well.

podski


Well, with hindsight everything is easy, in real time it's a little harder

At the open I had a slightly long bias, but by far nothing I would base a trade on... Have a look at the daily chart, there is a nice trendline we tried to break on Friday and Monday.
But to really convince me it took the 3rd 5min candle, a nice pop through y-close and y-high.
That said, please remember that I certainly am not an expert by any means..


vvhg

Hic Rhodos, hic salta.
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  #29 (permalink)
 
podski's Avatar
 podski 
Belgium
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninjatrader
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Trading: FDAX, FDXM ...maybe
Posts: 388 since Sep 2012
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Hi Everyone,

As Van Morrison says - My Mama told me there would be days like this.
1. It's sunny where I am. That doesn't happen often.
2. I was one and done at 09:30 this morning (well .. 2 and done .. but I will explain)
3. The whole day sort of panned out according to the Volatility based Session Pivots
This all leaves a guy thinking that maybe he will beat the 10,000 hour mark (see the thread here).

It wasn't a perfect day - certainly not in terms of my performance.

Trade 1: (-10 ticks - stopped out)
Following yesterday's reversal - it was a decisive down day today on the FDAX.

The context was bearish but for my amateur eyes I was expecting tension. In any case the screenshot attached shows the FDAX Context at 09:00 this morning. This is the open.

My game plan was to watch the first couple of bars and then look for bearish signs. It didn't take long.

Within a couple of minutes the ADN (Average Daily Noise) band breached and therefore - time to get short.

Unfortunately I was stopped out !!

Butterfingers.

Trade 2: Same Entry Point (+38 Ticks):
I felt this was just a case of a stupidly close stop, so I re-entered on the same bar and got paid on the same bar. I didn't even have time to move my target (default at 15 and 20 points) properly so that I could trail the trade manually.

Butterfingers !!

I felt a bit too stressed to enter another trade after this - didn't want to give it back.

Rest of the Day:
It was very nice to see however that the ADR target was hit. In fact the target could have been described in terms of the ADR target or the VWAP volatility bands.

The 2nd standard deviation was a nice exit point a little later in the day the only other trade that I would like to have taken was a nice move.

Back for more punishment tomorrow.

Trade Well!

podski

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  #30 (permalink)
 
ninjadiluce's Avatar
 ninjadiluce 
italia
 
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podski View Post
Hello All,

No trades today.

Despite the instructions on BM's signature to stop changing stuff - I spent the day doing just that.

Minor adjustments only but they totally threw my eye off and I was unsure about everything.

Anyway - now my chart is a little updated. Screenshot attached.

Moving Averages:
Fast = SMA(4)
Slow = SMA(21)
Yellow Dots:
They are a snapshot of the fast SMA(4) at the time of the open of the bar. Why do I do this ?
I like to enter a trade when the price opens at the SMA(4). Sometimes I miss it or sometimes I just ignore it because I think that the momentum is in fact going the wrong way and there will be a climatic reversal (it very very rarely happens but I think its going to happen all the time?!?).

Anyway - those yellow dots are where the SMA was when the bar opened.

I can now look back at a chart at the end of the day and see where the open of the bar was at or close to the SMA and what else was happening at that time in terms of the trend, the support and resistance etc.

Other Indicators:
fsAuctionBars
fsZeroLagOscillator
anaBetterVolume
-----------------

Yesterday the @PandaWarrior marked up my chart.

Someone else on futures.io (formerly BMT) has a signature that says something like "if you keep doing the same thing you keep getting the same results". So much of today and indeed tomorrow will be spent thinking about a trading plan update.

I am doing this journal to break out of a rut, impose discipline and get feedback. In just a few days all of that has happend. In general I know that my entries are getting better and better but my exits are still.

Taking a 1000 dollar risk for a 200 dollar win is wrong on many levels and the fact is that is what my previous trades look like.

My new journal uses the futures.io (formerly BMT) journal format and it is far superior to the other notes I was keeping. It is telling me a couple of things need to change.
a. I need to get rid of that ABE somehow. It knocks me out of very good trades and makes my hands weak.
b. the instrument that I am trading has big moves - for the most part they are with the trend. My trading philosophy needs to be more based on getting confidently in position for the rocket to take off and not on taking scalper money during swing moves.
No trades from me tomorrow either I think.

Trade well everyone!

podski

hello podski
i look for this indicator "fsAuctionBars" can you share ? please
take care

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