Interesting stuff...

Noticed you lurking at my thread and thought I'd see what you're up to... you remind me of me and how I used to trade several years ago... I am going to enjoy reading your work!

CoopersCorner 

Interesting stuff... Noticed you lurking at my thread and thought I'd see what you're up to... you remind me of me and how I used to trade several years ago... I am going to enjoy reading your work!

Uh oh....."how I used to trade several years ago" - that sounds like it didn't work!

I appreciate the look.... I have been watching your journal, and have found it very interesting so far. I couldn't help noticing that the one chart you posted with the notations is not too far from what I am looking for in my trades - consolidation zones are often times pullbacks depending on the timeframe or bar size lense you look through.

Hoping to get back to posting more in the journal... work has kept me away since last Wed, and will continue to at least through this week. But please feel free to provide any insights here, and I certainly look forward to following your journal.

Thanks

Would have been an amazing day.... had I been trading today.

As I do everyday that I can't trade, when I get home, review the charts for what it would have/could have/should have been. Hindsight is 20/20 of course, and no way to get all of this, but have no doubt it would have been a great day.

There will be many more (and the bad one's too, like a couple of days last week!) Can't wait to get these projects over with so I can get back to trading full time again.

....so let me show you what I saw Friday.

In short, Friday was a shit day. 3 losses (for me) right out of the gate.... and these were 18-25+ tick losers a piece.

A day like that is what used to send me into the weekend going through 127 different indicators, searching for the magic price levels in the market or that special geometry that would unlock the Grail. Thankfully, now I know there isn't one.

There will be good days and there will be not so good days.... the key for me has been finding a method that I have faith in, and that works for me more often than not. Will this change? Probably. When/if it does, I will adapt, but for now, I will follow the course and work the plan.

I'm not really following your entries on your chart. Are they pure price swing break continuation trades? If you're trading through Ninja why not use the trade display? Rt clck in Data Series/Trades /Plot Executions.

I know the triple knee capping out of the gate feeling, You have to play that as the comeback kid;
Play back/Sim at the same daily time slot is a solid sync therapy here.

Also if your 3 losers are on the same side of the market..you may be bring in a bias.

Are you minding typical price pattern completions? 3's, 5's and measured and extended moves and retracements?

peterg 

I'm not really following your entries on your chart. Are they pure price swing break continuation trades? If you're trading through Ninja why not use the trade display? Rt clck in Data Series/Trades /Plot Executions. I know the triple knee capping out of the gate feeling, You have to play that as the comeback kid; Play back/Sim at the same daily time slot is a solid sync therapy here. Also if your 3 losers are on the same side of the market..you may be bring in a bias. Are you minding typical price pattern completions? 3's, 5's and measured and extended moves and retracements?

@peterg,

I explained my entries (probably very poorly on my part) earlier in the thread.... basically, third break of the highest high/lowest low bar on a lower/higher swing.

There won't be any executions on the charts for the last few days.... haven't been trading, and with the amount of time spending on work, I unfortunately can't spend the hours trading on sim for the previous day - at least not at normal speed.

As I mentioned with my recent chart posts, just eyeballing the days action - the patterns and entries I use are pretty mechanical, so it makes it fairly easy to identify the entries for me. Again, everything in hindsight is extremely easy, but I do hold myself accountable for the good trades and the not so good ones. With that said, all sorts of wonderful and horrible things happen with live trading - slippage, missed entries/exits, fear and greed, breaking of one's rules. I simply like looking back on the days I don't trade to help keep myself in sync with the market, and to continuously reinforce my "rules" so I don't get rusty or creative.

"Triple knee capping" - love that one! Yes, it is tough to recover and not trade recklessly after a start like that.

Regarding bias.... something I have been looking into for some time now. I have been looking closely at some simple ideas such as taking the second signal only on a direction/trend change, or comparing the signal pattern to the previous to see if it is a higher or lower formation in relation to the last. Right now, just keeping notes on my observations to see if there is a consistent improvement in implementing these ideas. I have to say my thinking now is that with CL, I have seen it turn so quickly and ferociously from a trend in the past, trading only in an established trend direction may keep me out of the one trade that I have been looking for that day to make up for any previous losing trades.

As for price pattern completions - the 3's and 5's you mentioned and such - I assume you are referencing Elliot Wave principles or something similar. I have studied those pretty extensively, as well as fib retracements and extensions, wolfe waves, , volume analysis, divergence, candlestick patterns, endless chart patterns like flags and pennants, etc. Honestly, I have never been able to get any of these things to work consistently for me - or maybe a better statement is, I have never felt enough confidence in these things to make them work consistently for me.

Of course, I see many of these things on a daily basis.... channels and other chart patterns show up every day.... certain "waves" of directional moves are so much stronger than others.... all those things are real and usable. I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for traders that utilize their knowledge with all these things day in and day out - it just isn't me, at least not at this point in my journey.

With that being said, I like to think of myself as an eternal student - I enjoy going through threads here on futures.io (formerly BMT) and looking at new ideas and methods and challenging myself to try and understand what others are seeing and doing. So.... thank you for your post, and if you have any insights or thoughts you would like to share, please do so - I am sure they will help me and possibly others out there.

Thanks,
M

Maelstrom 

@peterg, I explained my entries (probably very poorly on my part) earlier in the thread.... basically, third break of the highest high/lowest low bar on a lower/higher swing. There won't be any executions on the charts for the last few days.... haven't been trading, and with the amount of time spending on work, I unfortunately can't spend the hours trading on sim for the previous day - at least not at normal speed. As I mentioned with my recent chart posts, just eyeballing the days action - the patterns and entries I use are pretty mechanical, so it makes it fairly easy to identify the entries for me. Again, everything in hindsight is extremely easy, but I do hold myself accountable for the good trades and the not so good ones. With that said, all sorts of wonderful and horrible things happen with live trading - slippage, missed entries/exits, fear and greed, breaking of one's rules. I simply like looking back on the days I don't trade to help keep myself in sync with the market, and to continuously reinforce my "rules" so I don't get rusty or creative. "Triple knee capping" - love that one! Yes, it is tough to recover and not trade recklessly after a start like that. Regarding bias.... something I have been looking into for some time now. I have been looking closely at some simple ideas such as taking the second signal only on a direction/trend change, or comparing the signal pattern to the previous to see if it is a higher or lower formation in relation to the last. Right now, just keeping notes on my observations to see if there is a consistent improvement in implementing these ideas. I have to say my thinking now is that with CL, I have seen it turn so quickly and ferociously from a trend in the past, trading only in an established trend direction may keep me out of the one trade that I have been looking for that day to make up for any previous losing trades. As for price pattern completions - the 3's and 5's you mentioned and such - I assume you are referencing Elliot Wave principles or something similar. I have studied those pretty extensively, as well as fib retracements and extensions, wolfe waves, , volume analysis, divergence, candlestick patterns, endless chart patterns like flags and pennants, etc. Honestly, I have never been able to get any of these things to work consistently for me - or maybe a better statement is, I have never felt enough confidence in these things to make them work consistently for me. Of course, I see many of these things on a daily basis.... channels and other chart patterns show up every day.... certain "waves" of directional moves are so much stronger than others.... all those things are real and usable. I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for traders that utilize their knowledge with all these things day in and day out - it just isn't me, at least not at this point in my journey. With that being said, I like to think of myself as an eternal student - I enjoy going through threads here on futures.io (formerly BMT) and looking at new ideas and methods and challenging myself to try and understand what others are seeing and doing. So.... thank you for your post, and if you have any insights or thoughts you would like to share, please do so - I am sure they will help me and possibly others out there. Thanks, M

I see. Thanks for the clarification.
In Strong Implusive or Momentum reversals your 3rd bar closing beyond last swing will be more profitable than it would be in Ranging or Corrective moves, since here you'll be entering too late and more likely to be stopped out; because by the time you get the trigger to enter the move is likely to reverse.(Maybe if you shifted down to the 133 or 89 tick for corrective moves and shortened the target exit this would work .)

How can I make such gross generalization? Because your trigger/entry is a momentum continuation trade.
This would work great for currencies, but bad with whippy volatility in anything.

Knowing Context is critical. I'm not taking so much THAT anal Elliot...but its an easy fib wave count 1,2,3,5,8

Look at Fridays 1st trade. From a low you had 5 waves up, the anticipated retracement / correction is 3 wave's down abc... where you shorted "in the hole" 3bars close beyond the A swing low. You should be thinking "buy "C" low for a retest/or extension beyond previous wave 5 top that was the end of the markets proven 1st impulsive long.

Then the second was a long I believe after a break of 3rd wave end.... banking on a wave 5 continuation.
But 3rd waves are the bulk of the trend move, and wave 5 is = to wave 1 or typically .62 of wave 3. So you're late again with not much more upside potential... so you're buying the top. Your waiting for the market to prove itself again when it already had with the first 5 wave run before your first trade. You needed to buy a break of wave 1 pivot after a higher low end of wave 2...and ride w3.

The 3rd trade.... again you waiting for the move to happen and jumping in late.(Maybe you need a reversal reaction trigger trade after a higher low(here and 2nd trade) or a lower high (on reversal top out)

Both the last two wins were hairball close.... just getting out before reversal (if I'm reading these trade entries correctly) So late again ...but profitable. I must say I'd be sweating these entries.

You appear to be trading conservatively by waiting... instead of having a trigger on the pulse of CL within its patterned context....

So your cool in strong trends...which only typically occurs 30-35% of the time; but still you dont need to have such conservative entries under strong momentum conditions, since you'll miss a chunk of ticks before the breakout.

Typically the mantra in trends is "buy/ add on the dip/pullback and ultimately sell exhaustion after max extention."

peterg 

I see. Thanks for the clarification. In Strong Implusive or Momentum reversals your 3rd bar closing beyond last swing will be more profitable than it would be in Ranging or Corrective moves, since here you'll be entering too late and more likely to be stopped out; because by the time you get the trigger to enter the move is likely to reverse.(Maybe if you shifted down to the 133 or 89 tick for corrective moves and shortened the target exit this would work .) How can I make such gross generalization? Because your trigger/entry is a momentum continuation trade. This would work great for currencies, but bad with whippy volatility in anything. Knowing Context is critical. I'm not taking so much THAT anal Elliot...but its an easy fib wave count 1,2,3,5,8 Look at Fridays 1st trade. From a low you had 5 waves up, the anticipated retracement / correction is 3 wave's down abc... where you shorted "in the hole" 3bars close beyond the A swing low. You should be thinking "buy "C" low for a retest/or extension beyond previous wave 5 top that was the end of the markets proven 1st impulsive long. Then the second was a long I believe after a break of 3rd wave end.... banking on a wave 5 continuation. But 3rd waves are the bulk of the trend move, and wave 5 is = to wave 1 or typically .62 of wave 3. So you're late again with not much more upside potential... so you're buying the top. Your waiting for the market to prove itself again when it already had with the first 5 wave run before your first trade. You needed to buy a break of wave 1 pivot after a higher low end of wave 2...and ride w3. The 3rd trade.... again you waiting for the move to happen and jumping in late.(Maybe you need a reversal reaction trigger trade after a higher low(here and 2nd trade) or a lower high (on reversal top out) Both the last two wins were hairball close.... just getting out before reversal (if I'm reading these trade entries correctly) So late again ...but profitable. I must say I'd be sweating these entries. You appear to be trading conservatively by waiting... instead of having a trigger on the pulse of CL within its patterned context.... So your cool in strong trends...which only typically occurs 30-35% of the time; but still you dont need to have such conservative entries under strong momentum conditions, since you'll miss a chunk of ticks before the breakout. Typically the mantra in trends is "buy/ add on the dip/pullback and ultimately sell exhaustion after max extention."

@peterg,

Interesting post... I will admit, my first read through prompted immediate thoughts of "oh no, it IS Elliot raising his confusing head again!".

Couple more read throughs however, and I see the value there. I will respond a little more in depth later on, but I wanted to post my chart with what I believe are your views of the waves and corrections from Friday morning.... please let me know if those are correct.

Thanks!

Hello,

Interesting thread, I will follow it. I mostly trade CL and recently (yesterday) started to trade with Mirus Futures.
I also started to post it but in a Spanish forum in Spanish.

Good luck

I am also enjoying your thread. I am no fan of Elliot waves, especially on CL.

Have you read Trading Chaos by Bill Williams. He discussed fractals, and how to trade them. His approach seems very similar to yours, and considering his method started with an Elliott wave analysis, you may find his book clarifying in some respects. Thanks again for your journal.