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cunparis journal, thoughts, and more

  #461 (permalink)
 mahlonhersh 
Arizona
 
Experience: Intermediate
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Trading: ES
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Cunparis,

I have a problem bugging me, and I'm thinking you might be able to help me. I enter trades on pullbacks only on the same side as my MA line. But not all pullbacks turn out to be good trades. Do you have any suggestions for throwing out the bad ones? I suppose if you did it would be worth a million dollars!!

Would this be a good job for a sine wave? I messed around a bit today with the sine wave from the forum. Have you tried it? How does it compare to Better Sine Wave? Is Better Sine Wave worth the money? Do you think this is looking in the right direction?

I appreciate your help,

Mahlon

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  #462 (permalink)
 
cunparis's Avatar
 cunparis 
Paris, France
 
Experience: Advanced
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Trading: ES
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gtichauer View Post
What if u leave your third contract as a SWING trade IF and WHEN u enter a trade on a Key Price Point and direction of the higher timeframe ?

Let's say you believe the sell off is not over, u define where resistance of the next bounce may be and when price get there AND u have a qualified SHORT setup u leave a third contract for more days.....

Excellent idea & thank you for participating. I really hope to get more brainstorming going on here.

Your idea is one that I've been considering. I first read about this from the Al Brooks book. He says if you believe a high or low may be the high or low of the day then you swing a contract. And he says all trades start with a scalp. All good advice.

I think this is a good approach for swinging part of a scalp trade. However on my real swing trades, I'm not fine-tuning my entry to the tick like I am with scalping. I usually like to see price move off the high or low as a confirmation and I also use wider stops. I'm also more flexible when it goes against me. I find it's not possible to fine-tune an entry when trading off higher timeframes. So this is one reason that a true swing trade would have to be done separately.

And I'm leaning towards both approaches: true swing trades for higher timeframe setups, and scalps with a potential swing but as you say it has to be at a really good level. In the past I've tried a "runner" on all trades and the problem is the runner is often stopped out. So it has to be reserved for really good setups.

I like your ideas please share more.

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  #463 (permalink)
 
cunparis's Avatar
 cunparis 
Paris, France
 
Experience: Advanced
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Trading: ES
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mahlonhersh View Post
Cunparis,

I have a problem bugging me, and I'm thinking you might be able to help me. I enter trades on pullbacks only on the same side as my MA line. But not all pullbacks turn out to be good trades. Do you have any suggestions for throwing out the bad ones? I suppose if you did it would be worth a million dollars!!

I do not believe something mechanical as entering on a 3 tick reversal in the direction of the MA can be profitable. I believe trading is more complicated than that.


Quoting 
Would this be a good job for a sine wave? I messed around a bit today with the sine wave from the forum. Have you tried it? How does it compare to Better Sine Wave? Is Better Sine Wave worth the money? Do you think this is looking in the right direction?

The sine wave could help with that. See the attached chart. With my pro paintbar that will give additional confirmation (magenta bar in 2nd pullback).

The Ninja better sinewave does not work like the better sinewave on tradestation. I'm not sure why. I've thought about programming it myself from the book. But you could give it a try. Also the Phase Shift Oscillator could be used as well but it has a drawback in that it has to be used with Calc on bar close = true.

Make 4500 & 500 tick charts and try them out. See if they give the same pattern that's on my chart. I'm interested to see if they can show something similar. For phase shift osc you can try different periods. 5,8 8,11, 7,13, 9,15 etc..

As for direction, I can't say if it's the right direction for you but this is the direction I choose in March last year. It has taken me over one year of using the sine wave daily to really learn how to use it. So this isn't a simple quick fix that you drop it on a chart and be profitable. Part of that year was just learning to trade and part was learning the sine wave. I suppose if one was already an excellent trader they could learn the sine wave quicker but then they probably wouldn't need it. Learning to use the sine wave is about learning to understand how markets operate. How they rotate, probing for acceptance at different price levels. The sine wave just helps to visualize that. So I think it's a good direction to take, the only caveat is that one should count on a lot of time & practice to learn it, possibly 6-18 months or even longer.

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  #464 (permalink)
 mahlonhersh 
Arizona
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: Mirus/Zen-Fire
Trading: ES
Posts: 155 since Jun 2009
Thanks Given: 709
Thanks Received: 176


cunparis View Post
I do not believe something mechanical as entering on a 3 tick reversal in the direction of the MA can be profitable. I believe trading is more complicated than that.

The sine wave could help with that. See the attached chart. With my pro paintbar that will give additional confirmation (magenta bar in 2nd pullback).

The Ninja better sinewave does not work like the better sinewave on tradestation. I'm not sure why. I've thought about programming it myself from the book. But you could give it a try. Also the Phase Shift Oscillator could be used as well but it has a drawback in that it has to be used with Calc on bar close = true.

Make 4500 & 500 tick charts and try them out. See if they give the same pattern that's on my chart. I'm interested to see if they can show something similar. For phase shift osc you can try different periods. 5,8 8,11, 7,13, 9,15 etc..

As for direction, I can't say if it's the right direction for you but this is the direction I choose in March last year. It has taken me over one year of using the sine wave daily to really learn how to use it. So this isn't a simple quick fix that you drop it on a chart and be profitable. Part of that year was just learning to trade and part was learning the sine wave. I suppose if one was already an excellent trader they could learn the sine wave quicker but then they probably wouldn't need it. Learning to use the sine wave is about learning to understand how markets operate. How they rotate, probing for acceptance at different price levels. The sine wave just helps to visualize that. So I think it's a good direction to take, the only caveat is that one should count on a lot of time & practice to learn it, possibly 6-18 months or even longer.

Cunparis,

Thanks for your input. I put the sine wave and PSO on the following charts. It seemed like 5,8 setting on PSO was the only one close. I tried a 6765 volume chart too. I kind of like how that one turned out. The small support and resistance dots are from the sine wave and the large ones from PSO.

I feel fairly comfortable identifying the pullbacks. If my paintbars change color I'm getting a pullback. If I'm on the right side of the trend, it is usually a high probability trade for 8-12 ticks.

Here's my problem - when a new wave or mini-trend starts, the first 1-3 pullbacks are usually pretty good. They are easy to spot. Easy to enter. All is good. The pullbacks after that start out looking just as good as the others, put they don't follow through. If you're lucky you get out BE or hit your stop loss. I'm just looking for some sort of pattern or technique or warning that could give me a clue so that I could just pass on that one. I guess I could just make a rule that I only take the first two pullbacks. The problem with this is I might be missing the start of a nice long trend.

I'm not sure if I'm looking for a cycle function(sine wave) or more of a momentum function.

I have tried looking at divergences, but that tends to lead me into the trap of counter trend trading, which I'm trying to avoid. They can also get you into trouble in a strong trend.

Maybe the only solution is to take all the pullbacks until one fails and just say that was a bad one and wait until a new wave or mini-trend confirms.

Thanks for your patience with me. Getting this clear in my mind is quite important to me at this point.

Mahlon

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  #465 (permalink)
 
gtichauer's Avatar
 gtichauer 
Argentina
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninja
Broker: Zen Fire / IB
Trading: ES, TF, 6E, CL
Posts: 379 since Jul 2009
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cunparis View Post
Excellent idea & thank you for participating. I really hope to get more brainstorming going on here.

Your idea is one that I've been considering. I first read about this from the Al Brooks book. He says if you believe a high or low may be the high or low of the day then you swing a contract. And he says all trades start with a scalp. All good advice.

I think this is a good approach for swinging part of a scalp trade. However on my real swing trades, I'm not fine-tuning my entry to the tick like I am with scalping. I usually like to see price move off the high or low as a confirmation and I also use wider stops. I'm also more flexible when it goes against me. I find it's not possible to fine-tune an entry when trading off higher timeframes. So this is one reason that a true swing trade would have to be done separately.

And I'm leaning towards both approaches: true swing trades for higher timeframe setups, and scalps with a potential swing but as you say it has to be at a really good level. In the past I've tried a "runner" on all trades and the problem is the runner is often stopped out. So it has to be reserved for really good setups.

I like your ideas please share more.

Thanks for your words.

I'm sure pure swing trading is a different approach....which comes with bigger stops (higher risks).......my idea aims more for people that have smaller accounts and/or are not willing to have much overnight exposure, as u use a position that is already risk free to go for an extended target....but first two contracts took the risk out, so overnight risk is greatly or totally reduced.

I agree it's not possible to fine-tune an entry when trading off higher timeframes....therefore I aim to use higher timeframes not for entry but only to define key areas to PAY EXTRA ATTENTION on one side of the market....

Also worth noting this approach may take several trades to get into a swing position, that's why money management is KEY.....and multicontracts also to eliminate risk asap and get to a risk free = stress free situation and let the trade play without emotions fighting us....but also the risk per trade will be smaller than pure swing trading.....

which is the book u reference from Al Brooks?

GT
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  #466 (permalink)
 
gtichauer's Avatar
 gtichauer 
Argentina
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninja
Broker: Zen Fire / IB
Trading: ES, TF, 6E, CL
Posts: 379 since Jul 2009
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mahlonhersh View Post
Cunparis,

I feel fairly comfortable identifying the pullbacks. If my paintbars change color I'm getting a pullback. If I'm on the right side of the trend, it is usually a high probability trade for 8-12 ticks.

Here's my problem - when a new wave or mini-trend starts, the first 1-3 pullbacks are usually pretty good. They are easy to spot. Easy to enter. All is good. The pullbacks after that start out looking just as good as the others, put they don't follow through. If you're lucky you get out BE or hit your stop loss. I'm just looking for some sort of pattern or technique or warning that could give me a clue so that I could just pass on that one. I guess I could just make a rule that I only take the first two pullbacks. The problem with this is I might be missing the start of a nice long trend.

Mahlon,

I may be EXTRA positive here but I see no problem....I see opportunity....trade ONLY the 2-3 pullbacks and increase your % win rate.....increase your size per trade and grow your account faster....and if u believe this is not enough trading diversify markets for this setup....but sometimes LESS IS MORE....you have an edge here from what I understand....exploit it....


mahlonhersh View Post
Maybe the only solution is to take all the pullbacks until one fails and just say that was a bad one and wait until a new wave or mini-trend confirms.

Mahlon

I'm just a novice trader but what I´ve clearly learned is that trading is a probabilities game, so if u have a solid trading plan with solid money management rules u should be ok....losses are part of the business.....easy to say, difficult to apply....I'm sure u know this, dont need me to tell u....but may be usufull for new traders.

Just my humble opinion....

GT
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  #467 (permalink)
 
cunparis's Avatar
 cunparis 
Paris, France
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Market Delta & Ninjatrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 2,565 since Jun 2009
Thanks Given: 1,162
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gtichauer View Post
which is the book u reference from Al Brooks?

The book is:

Amazon.com: Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar: The Technical Analysis of [AUTOLINK]Price Action[/AUTOLINK] for the Serious Trader (Wiley Trading) (9780470443958): [AUTOLINK]Al Brooks[/AUTOLINK]: Books

There is a slight catch in your idea in that the third contract isn't "free". It alters the R:R for your trade because it makes your stop outs cost 50% more (stopping out 3 instead of 2). That's the thing to watch out for because if the 3rd contract doesn't hit its target enough then the impact on the strategy will be negative. I've documented this myself by keeping stats on a 3rd contract and I've found it's not always better. Depends on the market and if you do it at a really good S/R level (like you said).

Further thinking on my part last night tells me that set targets aren't the most efficient. The market should tell me when to get out. Ideas are exiting on an opposing sine signal or pro activity against the trade or an opposite ladder setup. I'm working on this.

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  #468 (permalink)
 
cunparis's Avatar
 cunparis 
Paris, France
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Market Delta & Ninjatrader
Trading: ES
Posts: 2,565 since Jun 2009
Thanks Given: 1,162
Thanks Received: 2,093


mahlonhersh View Post
I feel fairly comfortable identifying the pullbacks. If my paintbars change color I'm getting a pullback. If I'm on the right side of the trend, it is usually a high probability trade for 8-12 ticks.

Here's my problem - when a new wave or mini-trend starts, the first 1-3 pullbacks are usually pretty good. They are easy to spot. Easy to enter. All is good. The pullbacks after that start out looking just as good as the others, put they don't follow through. If you're lucky you get out BE or hit your stop loss.

I try to trade less not more. So if you have a high probability setup for a couple trades a day, only take those trades. Only take the first 2 pullbacks. A retired floor trader wrote in a forum to only take the first two pullbacks of a new swing, preferably the first swing after the open. This was the highest probability trade(s). Sounds like you have arrived at the same. So take the first two and then quit for the day. Read a book, watch a webinar, or go do some exercise. As you get consistent increase your contracts. That is a recipe for success.

Currently I'm stopping after 2 pts in the morning and then 2 after lunch. 4 pts per day consistently is all one needs to be very profitable.

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  #469 (permalink)
 mahlonhersh 
Arizona
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: Mirus/Zen-Fire
Trading: ES
Posts: 155 since Jun 2009
Thanks Given: 709
Thanks Received: 176

GT,

Thanks for sharing your input. Cunparis urging me to look at other charts has been helpful. My "problem" is not quit so obvious on a slower chart. The stop needs to be a little bigger, but I think I can live with that. So I fine tuned my charts today and we'll see what Monday's action brings. I will try and post a couple more charts on Monday.

I too like what you are saying about multiple contracts and staying in trades longer. I have no interest in overnite positions, but do want to gain the confidence and experience to get more out of the intraday swings.

Good luck in your trading,

Mahlon

  #470 (permalink)
 mahlonhersh 
Arizona
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: Mirus/Zen-Fire
Trading: ES
Posts: 155 since Jun 2009
Thanks Given: 709
Thanks Received: 176



cunparis View Post
I try to trade less not more. So if you have a high probability setup for a couple trades a day, only take those trades. Only take the first 2 pullbacks. A retired floor trader wrote in a forum to only take the first two pullbacks of a new swing, preferably the first swing after the open. This was the highest probability trade(s). Sounds like you have arrived at the same. So take the first two and then quit for the day. Read a book, watch a webinar, or go do some exercise. As you get consistent increase your contracts. That is a recipe for success.

Currently I'm stopping after 2 pts in the morning and then 2 after lunch. 4 pts per day consistently is all one needs to be very profitable.

Cunparis,

Thanks for your advice. I have been watching the whole cash market every day for the last six months. I have gotten a lot of screen time this way. But you're right. I could be doing other profitable things too.

Mahlon


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