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Gozilla's Rough road to consistency.


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Gozilla's Rough road to consistency.

  #81 (permalink)
 
Gozilla's Avatar
 Gozilla 
Aberdeen, Scotland
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Sierra Chart
Broker: Infinity/Transact
Trading: YM
Posts: 216 since Jun 2013
Thanks Given: 216
Thanks Received: 275

Despite getting a good chunk of it still managed to miss most of it so far, I think I have gotten too fixated with the P&L which is making me fearful of giving much of it back so for now I am going to sit back and observe.

A couple of hours have passed since I last updated the daily but given what has happened since then it might be worthwhile recording the initial reaction.


I was unsure how price was going to work out this morning, I considered a rally off the hourly but also wondered if the proximity of the daily support would be some sort of irresistible force that price had to go to.

1. Price was hanging around the hourly support, Waited for price to break higher but also trailed a stop sell just in case price did end up blowing out the bottom of the hourly. Price broke lower then just kept going, initially tracked with lines but as the pace slowed marked off the retraces and planned on using those as stops, should have tracked with lines at the end as price accelerated again.

Watched price on the 1 minute waiting for the daily line to come up on the screen but when it is zoomed in longer time frame lines seem to vanish, I knew it was there and my stop probably would have been tighter had a seen we had a breach of it.

2. Possible resistance, Shorted as price failed to move higher and considered a continuation lower. Then once entered thought that this down move could be over, I flattened out which was a little early suspecting either a double bottom or higher low.

Should have waited on price to actually bottom rather than exit on feeling.

3. Higher low. With the downtrend being over price had failed to move lower, buy stop triggered and price tracked with lines. Eventually price broke the line and I hesitated a little as it was a sideways break, it dropped and I exited.

Even though I went long I was still biased short. Need to stop that. (Having a bias)

4. Price had a double top then broke the line, Shorted off the first retrace, I had initially discounted the line break earlier but picked up on it when price seemed to struggle, exited again more on feel.


5 and 6. Was a mess entered short, accidentally exited, re-entered and price failed to move south so exited again.

Should take a breather when I make mistakes.

7. With the uptrend being broken, now is the more appropriate retrace to get short. Tracked with lines and exited on the break.

It's during this trade I start to think to much about P&L, being so far ahead I could have given it a little room to retrace like it did to see if it would continue, once this trade closes out I start to think about calling it a day.

8 and 9. Over trading at this point and trying to scrape anything out of the market.

10. Short term trendline broken and as price retraces a short is triggered, trade exited quick as it fails to follow through.

Maybe should have waited to see if it took out the retracement high but maybe that is a bigger loss than necessary, possibly re-enter when price fails to reach this high but I was done by this point.

Was able to trade a lot closer to how I would like to, but it might have just been one of those days that suits my style better and there was still quite a few mistakes and oversights in there.

Gozilla

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  #82 (permalink)
 
Gozilla's Avatar
 Gozilla 
Aberdeen, Scotland
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Sierra Chart
Broker: Infinity/Transact
Trading: YM
Posts: 216 since Jun 2013
Thanks Given: 216
Thanks Received: 275

Update for trading activity from the 28th of March. Not really much of an update as I only watched the market for a short period of time, after 3 trades I made my mind up that it was looking a little indecisive and might be best left alone.

1. I was hesitating when it came to pulling the trigger but eventually entered when price broke higher after a slight pullback, price rallied before pulling back a touch and breaking the line, my exit was a little slower than I would have liked.

2. Looking for a short after the break of the previous line and closely watching price as it came to the previous high, Considered a long as this small pullback could have been a flag moving onto a continuation higher, the move got stopped at the high and a sell stop was triggered. Price briefly went lower before rising again, the lack of follow through convinced me to exit the trade.

3. Edit forgot this trade. Double top now a triple top, even though price broke a little lower it stalled and I exited again.

4. Third times a charm. Price again moved up to 3593 making it the fourth time it had visited this area and after coming off the lower low I shorted again but this time it broke higher causing me to exit the trade.

After the last trade I was unsure about how to proceed so sat out, I thought about giving it a couple of hours before looking at it again but decided it was the end of the week and to call it a day.

Gozilla

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  #83 (permalink)
 
Gozilla's Avatar
 Gozilla 
Aberdeen, Scotland
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Sierra Chart
Broker: Infinity/Transact
Trading: YM
Posts: 216 since Jun 2013
Thanks Given: 216
Thanks Received: 275


Compared to the norm I over traded slightly and by lunchtime decided to call it quits before I either got really carried away or did something stupid.

I'm only going to cover trades 1-3 as the rest are a fiasco for lack of a better word.

1. Price returned to opening high, I though about it breaking higher and decided if it did I would wait for it to retrace and then enter long, however if price was to fall I would trail a sell stop as it approached this price and trade as a possible range in formation. Price failed to break higher and swiftly moved lower triggering my order, Tracked with line (not shown) but I stepped away from the screens for a couple seconds and when I came back the line was broken and trade was exited very late.

If this was going to be a range, price bounced hard off the midpoint which was a consideration and why I planned to exit on any line break, my distraction cost me.

2. Price again returned to the opening high, there was a new high put in but as price came back under I shorted again, trade was quickly exited when price failed to follow through.

3. Only long trade of the day. Price just did not move away from the opening high and with the trade at two being a higher low I saw this as a breakout in the making and decided to enter if price moved to highs. Buy stop triggered and price tracked with lines and exited on break.

As for the rest of the trades, I think I was spraying and praying, there were a few really bad ones in there but for the most part I started shorting either when price failed to break the previous high or broke the previous low, it's just non of them on a very short time scale followed through enough and I over managed and traded way too much.

Gozilla

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  #84 (permalink)
 
Gozilla's Avatar
 Gozilla 
Aberdeen, Scotland
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Sierra Chart
Broker: Infinity/Transact
Trading: YM
Posts: 216 since Jun 2013
Thanks Given: 216
Thanks Received: 275

A repeat was on the cards and I ended up stopping for the day much earlier as a fired off a few more trades than I would have liked and over reacted to the small movements in price that I should have learned to expect by now.

I have been kind of wondering if there was going to be a rally with price not breaking through the daily support line and early on felt today might have been the day for a trend upward towards the upper extreme starting but I got hung up on the small picture.

1. Daydreaming on this entry, somehow forgot that price does not keep going in a straight line, should have waited for a pullback prior to entering rather than grabbing a reason from thin air.

2. Price had broken the uptrend and made a failed attempt to move higher so entered short, quickly exited once price failed to break the previous lows.

3. Price moved higher than the previous swing high and in anticipation entered long, around this time altered lower trend line to take in new low which I ignored a few minutes later when it came to the exit of this trade.

Trade exited as I was unwilling to give it enough room mainly as I did not want to have 3 losers in a row. This is poor reasoning.

4. Explained on chart and why I should not have exited trade 3.

5. Price broke swing high entered long and then exited. I should have been a little more cautious as price is not going to the upper extreme of channel and is showing weakness on each high (red line)compared to the lower line.

Could have used the previous swing low as an exit instead of not wanting to take too much heat on the trade.

6. Breakout of range, entered a little fast on this at the time, need to exercise a little more patience and wait for a retrace, price broke line sideways I gave it a little room, it rallied again then broke adjusted line and I exited as it started to drop.

7. Re-test of previous range, with price holding at the top of the precious range, decided to go long once/if price broke the last swing high which it did, unfortunately price failed to follow through and I exited as it dropped back into the range.

I think from the last couple of days I really need to cool it down a bit. This kind of trading only makes the broker money. A whole lot of actions not much progress, hopefully I am learning something from these last couple of days.

Gozilla.


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  #85 (permalink)
 
Gozilla's Avatar
 Gozilla 
Aberdeen, Scotland
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Sierra Chart
Broker: Infinity/Transact
Trading: YM
Posts: 216 since Jun 2013
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Thanks Received: 275

Did not notice it at the time or whilst annotating my charts only came up last night when I was reviewing my chart from the 31st of March, more specifically the area highlight in the green box, I was trying to work out what I could have done differently or failed to notice.

Given that I highlighted a similar occurrence on the 1 minute from yesterday's post I thought this might have some relevance in order to be more selective when it comes to trades.

Gozilla


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  #86 (permalink)
 
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 tturner86 
Portland, Oregon
 
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I have started watching the 300 tick charts from time to time, so I can have a better understanding when you post.

Thank you!


Gozilla View Post
First chart is a 300 tick, recently updated SC and instead of tick it seems to refer to it as trades, Second chart is a 60 minute, I just rolled my charts so had to update the lines and the last chart is a 1 minute chart.

I tend to chop and change how I display the price during the day and find in higher volume areas tick can clear the noise up a little, but any decisions made or trades taken are seen through on the bar interval it was opened on.



I understand that price more often ranges than not, but Identifying the change in real time from a rally or drop to a sideways range intraday is something I have often struggled with, I need to keep an open mind to all eventualities.





He who fights then runs away, lives to fight another day.

I think that's how the saying goes.

Gozilla


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  #87 (permalink)
 
Gozilla's Avatar
 Gozilla 
Aberdeen, Scotland
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Sierra Chart
Broker: Infinity/Transact
Trading: YM
Posts: 216 since Jun 2013
Thanks Given: 216
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Update for 2nd April 2014.

Lot less trades compared to the start of the week but I feel I'm still letting things slip by that I should be picking up on a little better.

Checked out price prior to open to get an idea of support, resistance or any trendlines to help identify areas to be looking for trades, I want to be a little more picky right off the bat instead of machine gun trading. Market opened breaking higher, it did not get far and was quickly pushed down towards the lows. Again it rallied, broke a little higher and then got dropped quick, it did this two more times before finally forming a lower low, the subsequent two bar retrace could have been a short but at this point I hesitated due to an ascending trendline coming into play.

1. Price dropped to and slightly beyond what I considered support it bounced, dropped and managed to form a slightly higher low where a long was triggered, price rallied enough to track with lines, after several bars price dropped suddenly where I had a knee jerk reaction and exited the trade.

2. Seeing price form a higher low and retest what could be a consolidation range from trade 1 a buy stop was triggered with the idea that this could be a continuation back towards highs. Price failed to break the previous swing high and trade was exited.

3. Price had rallied off what was now new range lows, as it approached midpoint I was determined or biased towards price moving to upper limits and so, entered on what I considered a pullback continuation. Trade exited once price broke the pullback low.

This was a terrible trade, I have a range identified and a plan to trade the extremes but here I am trying to make something happen right in the middle. Also, I overlooked the break price of the rising trendline as a possible point of resistance.

4. Still considering the initial support as having some kind of effect on price at this point, again price breached this line moved higher then formed a higher low which triggered an entry, got a little rally from here but it was short lived and trade exited.

Trade reversal at the extremes of a range or the retest/retrace after the breakout or breakdown.

Stopped for the day after trade four, I wondered if price would get the extremes and more in particular if it would test resistance now support at the previous day's high. Was not until I checked in the lead up to close that I regretted this decision.

There's always next time.

Gozilla


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  #88 (permalink)
 
Gozilla's Avatar
 Gozilla 
Aberdeen, Scotland
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Sierra Chart
Broker: Infinity/Transact
Trading: YM
Posts: 216 since Jun 2013
Thanks Given: 216
Thanks Received: 275

Bad start to the day caused me to miss the opening 40 minutes and probably the best chance of the day or so it seemed at the time.

Range was reasonably straight forward to identify using yesterdays high and low, and today for a change price was reacting cleanly to the mid point, this offered opportunities but for now it was all about the extremes and waiting for one or the other to be reached prior to making any trades.

1. Price had breached the support line which I guess now is a bit of a warning, it didn't spend much time here and returned to the range where it flagged above support. Buy stop triggered as price broke higher, I was aware of the descending trendline but was playing this as a range, price reacted to the trendline and yet I continued to turn a blind eye to it. Price made it's way to break even and I exited.

Even though I know now that price moved lower I wonder if I should have given it time to test support or exit at the trendline.

2. Price spent a little time chewing up the line, it eventually pushed lower retraced to what could now be considered resistance and began dropping, sell stop triggered once price broke the retrace low.

Little frustrated with my exit. Price was moving lower it broke the initial line but instead of exiting I decided to use the swing highs to dictate the exit, trade was exited on emotion there was no exit as no swing high was broken on the move down until the bottom highlighted by arrow.


Again as seems to be a habit I got distracted by getting something to eat and then did not feel like sitting back in front of the computer for the last couple of hours and again like the previous day had to give myself a kick when I checked over the end of day action.

This chart is all in hindsight so it may not have turned out the way I would have liked but it shows to me that trades exist right up to end of day. I just think that range days are real enthusiasm sappers.

Gozilla

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  #89 (permalink)
 
Gozilla's Avatar
 Gozilla 
Aberdeen, Scotland
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Sierra Chart
Broker: Infinity/Transact
Trading: YM
Posts: 216 since Jun 2013
Thanks Given: 216
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tturner86 View Post
I have started watching the 300 tick charts from time to time, so I can have a better understanding when you post.

Thank you!

The 300 tick is handy for getting in and out fast but on very high volume days like this it can give off a lot of trades, I think this has been behind my over trading earlier in the week.

Today was an example, huge volume, over double the previous day and all the oscillations on the 300 looked big even though point wise they are not that big but the eye can convince the head to make all sorts of rash decisions. The 1000 tick and 1 minute however looked a lot more appealing but I did not think about it until it was a little later in the day when the best of it was behind us.

Post to follow will illustrate this I hope.

Gozilla

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  #90 (permalink)
 
Gozilla's Avatar
 Gozilla 
Aberdeen, Scotland
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Sierra Chart
Broker: Infinity/Transact
Trading: YM
Posts: 216 since Jun 2013
Thanks Given: 216
Thanks Received: 275


Interesting day today, sat out the open as I was wanting to wait and see how the market reacted to news and by the time I was feeling a little more confident to dip my toe in the water 40 minutes had passed and a little patience had to be exercised waiting for a setup to take the first trade on.

The lead up to the first trade. Price had rallied from yesterdays lows which was also the high from 31st of March. Pre-market to open price had re-entered yesterdays range and by open had moved slightly higher than the midpoint of this range. Price got slammed from here, hit and broke yesterdays low, bounced then created a new low before rallying. This rally went as far as the flag formed when price dropped out of the range, possible resistance? Price dropped from here broke the trendline and it was a case of waiting for a retrace.

1. With price breaking its uptrend we eventually identify a retrace and trail a stop entry to get triggered when price makes the drop from the retrace. Trade triggered, track with lines and once it has moved further in the right direction we could use swing highs as exits. Trade eventually exited under yesterdays lows.

2 & 3. Another rally broken and time to wait for a retrace, this time however I mangled my entry and got in too early, price continued to rally and I exited the trade. Re-entered short again tagging this as the real break of the retrace but as price hesitated to move lower than the retrace low exited the trade.


Missed most of the middle as I was out hence the big gap between 3 and 4.

4. The pace of the fall had by this time started to tail off but was still trending lower. Price had broken the descending trendline and bounced confirming the lower channel, I failed to take the first retrace instead entering on the next pullback but by now price was mid channel and trade was chopped up.

5. Trade had reached top of the channel and I decided to jump in on a reversal prior to any retrace, though there was an initial drop it failed to follow through, it rallied broke higher where I exited the trade.



I think it has been an OK week, there has been over trading, getting tangled up in chop and trading on emotion but overall it's been a positive experience and given me some ideas and things to look at going forward.

Gozilla

Today had a large outlier that made a huge difference to the week, I think my losers are under control but I need to boost the winners slightly as a large bulk of them are not as productive as I would like. This could be achieved I think with better trade selection and less emotion based decisions.

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