Big Think Interview with Annie Duke | Annie Duke | Big Think

aztrader9 

Ugh....nasty day today for me. I started ok, was up a little bit and then kept gave it all back plus a little. I was long most of the morning but kept holding for to large of profit targets. My patience thing back fired today! Instead I should have been taking smaller profit targets. Oh well.... I quit after I reached my daily stop loss. I also made a decision today. I have been a ten tick trader for a long time now. Lately I've been trying to hold for more. Frankly, my system does show me larger targets but I have been unable to hold for them. So back to what got me profitable in the first place, 10 tick targets. Occasionally and only if I am up quite a bit and only if I get a HPO, will I target more and then only 20. The 100 tick targets will have to wait. Here's hoping tomorrow has a bigger range.

What has been working for me, AZ, is to pull my stop up tight at the profit target giving the trade a chance to go further.
I have closed too many positions that later rally. I now like the market to stop me out, not my close button.

I love the old adage ... "Cut your losses short and let your profits run"

Hope you had a good Holiday season!!

aztrader9 

Here you go....marked manually of course as I am only charting on NT.

Man, I forget how smooth the CL moves at times. I'll be back to it some day.

Having success in the YM for now. Need to build up the reserves a bit more before I take on that full tick size again...

Great trading, my friend...

aztrader9 

So poor trading today. Live to fight another day. I am testing my PA reading ability with no indicators on the chart currently. Its not going so well. Cheers

Would it be better, if your reading pure price action , to use candlesticks?
I know you hate time charts...

aztrader9 

Today I looked at a couple of straight S/R trades on a 5 minute chart. One was for 50 ticks and the other one for 40 ticks. Both worked pretty well. I did use my 6 range chart for more precise entries. This could have been luck or possibly the beginnings of something. Only time will tell. Eventually the goal is to eliminate the reliance on moving averages. I think often times they add risk instead of reducing it.

The five minute chart with am EMA 20 is a powerful thing.

I use it alongside your Range bar setup...

Big picture / small picture..
Back and forth... back and forth

tderrick 

The five minute chart with am EMA 20 is a powerful thing. I use it alongside your Range bar setup... Big picture / small picture.. Back and forth... back and forth

I have a 5 minute and a 15 minute along with a 200 tick chart. The five minute is for looking for S/R I don't always see on the range chart and the 15 minute is just so I can see the entire day on one small chart. Still trading on a range chart. I think price action is best seen in a range chart, after all, the only thing is shows is price.

aztrader9 

I have a 5 minute and a 15 minute along with a 200 tick chart. The five minute is for looking for S/R I don't always see on the range chart and the 15 minute is just so I can see the entire day on one small chart. Still trading on a range chart. I think price action is best seen in a range chart, after all, the only thing is shows is price.

I agree. I always pull the trigger with the Range Bar chart cue. The candlesticks just tell me when to look
over there...

Well where to begin. Today was one of those days. I got down $480 early then back to zero, the up $280 then just took it on the chin in the chop. The range was large enough to generate some profits, BUT and its a big but, you needed to be perfect and fast on the entries. This caused me some money today as I was not perfect. Net -30 ticks on 2 contracts or -$600.

As 30 ticks is my daily stop loss, I called it quits only to see prices open up what had been a fairly narrow range. But my trading buddy said to walk away and I did. Back after the close to re-asses and journal.

What can I say, for the most part, I think I took good signals, its just there was no real follow through on what I was seeing. As my signals are driven off of a moving average, on days like this, I am trading in the middle of the range which leads to really poor results.

There were several areas of good support and resistance. A more logical trade strategy would be to ignore or remove the moving average on days like this and just trade the ranges. Truthfully though, I often don't recognize its in a range until its too late.

I got rid of the moving average and just traded PA today. Now that was an experience. I will never again put a moving average on my chart. Horizontal and diagonal lines? Maybe although they were not much help today.

Lets see how this day went. Early morning traded 1-2 lots...mostly one. I was scared with no MA. But hit a number of small winners and a couple full target winners, then had some scratch trades. High of the day was $420. I think I started to get tired after CL just ping ponged around in a real tight range. I went back to $270 then back to $390.....then the range really got narrow. But I was reading PA decently so far and decided to try a few trades hoping to catch a run. Which never came. Had a nice long string of losers....end the day -$230.

So what is the take away from today. Not having the MA on the chart kept me out of the early chop and actually making money, then a little arrogance crept in and the market can be choppier longer than you can maintain focus and a positive equity curve.

So once I figured out I was too tired to focus after staring a super narrow range all morning, I just decided to walk away and keep the loss small.

Two losing days in a row. I am unhappy with this but I am very happy about removing the MA. In the long run, I think it will be of great benefit as it will force me to look at and decide what price is doing and may do next vs deciding what the indicator should do next.

Tomorrow, I will be trading 2 contracts instead of one. I felt so comfortable with the naked chart that I want to size up just a bit.

Til tomorrow then.

I would feel very lost without a moving average, seeing as it is the only indicator I use. (unless S/R is an indicator)

Would you go into more detail about why you lost it, please?