Well Apple had a blow out quarter and the market loved it. Futures just jumped overnight, and opened well beyond what my calculated bullish target zone called for. One of my trading rules is not to go long above my bullish zone or short beneath the bearish zone, so I knew opportunities today would be very limited. The bullish sentiment continued after the market opened today, driving prices up, up, up....my gap calculated bullish target was 2712 but price did not get there.

I waited for the buying fever to subside, thought I saw a good short opportunity and entered. Price action stalled. I kept the stop in place (hard stop about 5 points above, soft target about 2.5, if price closes above the soft target, close the trade, the hard stop is in place for a sudden spike). After several minutes with price just doing some in place up/down movement, I lowered my price target and got out with a small profit. I figure the market will mark time from now until the FOMC announcement, so I am keeping my powder dry.

Green Day, Discipline Green for 2 points.....

papa15 

Well Apple had a blow out quarter and the market loved it. Futures just jumped overnight, and opened well beyond what my calculated bullish target zone called for. One of my trading rules is not to go long above my bullish zone or short beneath the bearish zone, so I knew opportunities today would be very limited. The bullish sentiment continued after the market opened today, driving prices up, up, up....my gap calculated bullish target was 2712 but price did not get there. I waited for the buying fever to subside, thought I saw a good short opportunity and entered. Price action stalled. I kept the stop in place (hard stop about 5 points above, soft target about 2.5, if price closes above the soft target, close the trade, the hard stop is in place for a sudden spike). After several minutes with price just doing some in place up/down movement, I lowered my price target and got out with a small profit. I figure the market will mark time from now until the FOMC announcement, so I am keeping my powder dry. Green Day, Discipline Green for 2 points.....

I am sure its a simple reason but why wouldn't you buy the bullish zone and sell the bearish zone? Sounds backwards....but then I dont know what your method is either...

PandaWarrior 

I am sure its a simple reason but why wouldn't you buy the bullish zone and sell the bearish zone? Sounds backwards....but then I dont know what your method is either...

The bullish target zone is where I expect price to go to on an upswing for a "normal" day; just the opposite for the bearish zone. Basically, it adds a piece to the puzzle along with use of pivots to lay out a road map for what to expect.....but then you have those days like today that are really, really out of the ordinary. The buy point would be a pullback to either H3 or H4 (Camarilla pivot levels).

When you open beyond a target zone, the fall back is to calculate a new bullish and bearish target based off the opening price....that bullish price today was 2712. But with the FOMC announcement coming later, I just figured better to sit, watch, and learn without having money at risk.....

Messed up my discipline this morning. Tried a new method with cash before adequately testing. Entered a trade before the opening chop was finished. Able to get out with profit, but certainly not happy with my execution. Allowed myself to look at a couple of other journals and this put that little seed in my mind that their method might be easier, better, whatever than mine. That was the fundamental breakdown. I must stick with what I know works for me.......the book of James tells us that a double-minded man is unstable and when I mix methods/techniques, etc, I see exactly what that means. I just need to leave my charts alone and master them.....

papa15 

... Allowed myself to look at a couple of other journals and this put that little seed in my mind that their method might be easier, better, whatever than mine. That was the fundamental breakdown. I must stick with what I know works for me.......the book of James tells us that a double-minded man is unstable and when I mix methods/techniques, etc, I see exactly what that means. I just need to leave my charts alone and master them.....

You look because deep down you haven't stop searching. But once you have 'it' you can look all you want but you won't be interest. ( I am not Dr. Phil)

Thursday afternoon we drove to the Virginia Tidewater area (near Norfolk) to visit my son and his family (3 grand children). I did some reviewing of Secrets of a Pivot Boss during the drive, and the refresher was good. It just re-enforced my need to stick to my core method, and leave the rest alone.

Friday I did not trade. Instead I spent some time working a modification to Fat Tails DailyPivots v38 indicator. I could not program this indicator on my own, but by looking at Fat Tail's code, I was able to see how to modify it to suit my desires. This is a tremendous strength of Big Mike's Trading; trader's helping traders for no other reason than they can. For this indicator, I just wanted to show the R3-R5 and S3-S5 levels of the Camarilla pivots as well as the Central Pivot levels, and I wanted to be able to color them in a certain way. Was able to accomplish that.

My trading technique is basically pivot plays. I read John Person's material a few years back and it had a certain appeal to me, but I was not able to really get it to work at the time. Secrets of a Pivot Boss filled in the missing gaps from Person's work and allowed me to put together a complete trading approach. Frank Ochoa covers use of TPO, Floor Pivots, and Camarilla pivots in his book. I like the Camarilla pivots the best, so that is what I use. I follow the pivot analysis that Frank uses ahead of a market day, looking for the buy/sell areas and use his ATR method to generate bullish/bearish target zones. It does work. I will also do breakouts from either the opening 15 minutes or first hour at times.

The last few days, I let myself drift away from strictly following this method, and I felt uncomfortable. One of the good things I like about the pivot method is the use of "larger" charts. The smallest I use is 5 minutes, and sometimes I go up to 15 minutes for trading. Targets are larger, which is something I have tried to reach for sometime.

I just wanted to post this here as an accountability tool. If you see me drift away from it, please smack me up side the head with something.


A screen shot is attached. Only 3 indicators: a bar timer, the opening range, and the daily pivots....overall, a fairly naked chart. Goal is generally to sell against resistance and buy against support. Breakouts require confirmation (a following bar must close in the direction of the trade after the breakout/breakdown bar).

Attached are some of my trading guidelines...

papa15 

Thursday afternoon we drove to the Virginia Tidewater area (near Norfolk) to visit my son and his family (3 grand children). I did some reviewing of Secrets of a Pivot Boss during the drive, and the refresher was good. It just re-enforced my need to stick to my core method, and leave the rest alone. Friday I did not trade. Instead I spent some time working a modification to Fat Tails DailyPivots v38 indicator. I could not program this indicator on my own, but by looking at Fat Tail's code, I was able to see how to modify it to suit my desires. This is a tremendous strength of Big Mike's Trading; trader's helping traders for no other reason than they can. For this indicator, I just wanted to show the R3-R5 and S3-S5 levels of the Camarilla pivots as well as the Central Pivot levels, and I wanted to be able to color them in a certain way. Was able to accomplish that. My trading technique is basically pivot plays. I read John Person's material a few years back and it had a certain appeal to me, but I was not able to really get it to work at the time. Secrets of a Pivot Boss filled in the missing gaps from Person's work and allowed me to put together a complete trading approach. Frank Ochoa covers use of TPO, Floor Pivots, and Camarilla pivots in his book. I like the Camarilla pivots the best, so that is what I use. I follow the pivot analysis that Frank uses ahead of a market day, looking for the buy/sell areas and use his ATR method to generate bullish/bearish target zones. It does work. I will also do breakouts from either the opening 15 minutes or first hour at times. The last few days, I let myself drift away from strictly following this method, and I felt uncomfortable. One of the good things I like about the pivot method is the use of "larger" charts. The smallest I use is 5 minutes, and sometimes I go up to 15 minutes for trading. Targets are larger, which is something I have tried to reach for sometime. I just wanted to post this here as an accountability tool. If you see me drift away from it, please smack me up side the head with something. A screen shot is attached. Only 3 indicators: a bar timer, the opening range, and the daily pivots....overall, a fairly naked chart. Goal is generally to sell against resistance and buy against support. Breakouts require confirmation (a following bar must close in the direction of the trade after the breakout/breakdown bar).

Very nice.....

Two trades today. First one followed a close below the overnight low. Once that level was breeched, I expected price to test Friday's low. I went short on the close below the overnight high and reached my profit target fairly quickly. Second trade was a long on the pull back from the test of Friday's low. Quickly reached the profit target on that one as well.

If I were to continue trading, I would not go long unless price closed above the overnight low and would not go short unless price closed below the first hour's low.

I have attached a view of the chart I used this morning. I removed the pivots since they are calculated values and stuck with High/Low/Close from Friday, the overnight High/Low, and the first how high/low. These are actual price points and I traded them just as I would have traded calculated pivots. I like the cleaner look of the chart.

I am giving myself the benefit of the doubt on discipline....could easily be red on that. I made 3 mistakes this morning, but was blessed to get out with a profit.

First trade was ok. I waited for the first couple of minutes of price action where price went down after the open. Yesterday's close was above price and yesterday's pivot was above the close. The market opened below yesterday's close, so I thought there would be a very good chance price would turn and go towards the close. I had a buy stop above yesterday's low, price did reverse and go to the close. A good trade..

Once price closed the gap, I played a fade the gap closure trade, thinking the market would go back towards the overnight low. This was faulty logic since the market is in an overall uptrend. Price is above the 13 ema on the daily chart, so really I should have been looking for opportunities to go long. The second mistake is I should have waited until after 9:45 before doing another trade....I let myself get caught in the opening chop. I went ahead and rode the trade, waited to price turned back down, saw an appropriate entry, made it, and exited both contracts for a profit.

The third mistake was I failed to look at the economic calendar and did not realize major news was due out at 10 am. Again I was blessed to be out of the market before the news announcement.

I am thankful to have a profit, but not happy with my trading discipline. There are some powerful lessons here...


On another note, there are 2 unfilled gaps above the current price. One is at 2753.75 and the other at 2755.25. I do expect a sell in May and go away kind of month, but probably after we fill those gaps....