That's strange. I often get my first trade wrong and recover afterwards.

I have thought about skipping the first trade, but it never worked.

safin 

July-30 ===== This was supposed to be a relaxing day, but it turned out to be a hectic day. Too many trades. Total Profit : 60$ (5 trades) First Trade : -220 (three setup) A nice I/B at 9.30am. But I missed important news announcement for "Chicago PMI" and "Inflation Expectation". In fact I saw news was coming around 9.45am. But I thought they are not related to CL. So I did long 1 tick above this bar with 22 tick stop loss. CL fluctuated and took my stop. This is where everything started. Now I was forced to trade more at least for break even. Second Trade: 40$ (my setup) I got a resistance line at 77.94. 78 is major price mark. So First target I set as 5 ticks and second target was runner. CL broke that resistance and went up. But it did not move much after 4 ticks. I got scared and exited with 2 ticks on each trade. Third Trade : 60$ (my setup) After first failed breakout, I drew another resistance line at 78.05. Entered long at 78.06. Same story again. I got scared and exited with 3 ticks on both orders. Fourth Trade : 100$ (my setup) Around 12pm, I got another resistance line at 78.14. This was lunch time, but somehow volume was still up. So I took this risk and entered long at 78.15. CL moved 5 ticks and stopped for a while. I exited with 5 ticks as soon as I got chance. All above 3 trades failed to do nice breakouts. This could be because it is Friday and not many big players. Anyways I just wanted to stop here because I recovered my morning loss. Fifth Trade : 80$ (three setup) Around 2pm, I saw increasing volume. Thought about using three setup if I get any I/B or O/B. I got an O/B at 2.15pm. Got 8 ticks easily. But guess what? that was not an O/B. I misread that bar. Lucky one for me. Moral of the story: Do not trade on Friday if your weekly targets are achieved. Just keep your computer off. Do not even look at it. Charts coming soon...

Safin.......on your fifth trade..........my chart showed an outside bar.........but now when I bring the chart up it shows that it wasn't an outside bar.......the same thing happened to me on Wed after the oil inventory report......I asked Ninja about it and it is a common problem. So, you actually might have identified the O/B correctly in real time.....

Fat Tails 

That's strange. I often get my first trade wrong and recover afterwards. I have thought about skipping the first trade, but it never worked.

I agree. It's really hard to seat ideal without doing any trade for entire day. Hope I will learn to be disciplined after few shocking Fridays.

My chart shows(painted) an OB as well, yet the low of that OB bar was 1 tick less than the previous bar. All very odd.

Jeff Castille 

Safin.......on your fifth trade..........my chart showed an outside bar.........but now when I bring the chart up it shows that it wasn't an outside bar.......the same thing happened to me on Wed after the oil inventory report......I asked Ninja about it and it is a common problem. So, you actually might have identified the O/B correctly in real time.....

The outside bar that was shown was identified on real-time data. When the outside bar disappeared after reloading the chart, that was historical data. If the time-stamps between real-time and historical data are a few seconds off, there can be a difference like this one.

It also depends on the data feed. Some data feeds come with time stamps, others are time stamped by NinjaTrader using your system clock.

Anyhow, it is not important, whether there was an outside bar or not. Just imagine a 6 min time frame, and the outside bar would have shown up on the 6 min chart by using historical data. What is important behind the outside bar is the price action:

- price tries to break out southward
- price reverses and traps a number of traders
- the trapped traders have put their stops somewhere above the prior 5 minute bar
- price hits the stop zone and the trapped traders cover (don't mind if it hits the zone 5 seconds late!)
- long entry to increase the pain and take advantage of the momentum created by the short covering

So it is a trap and you know who is the counterparty paying your lunch.

2-August
======

Today was three setup day. All three winners. Pretty relaxing day.

Total Profit : 250$ (3 trades)

First Trade : 80$ (I/B)
Inside Bar at 9.30am. 8 ticks easy.

Second Trade : 80$ (O/B)
Outside bar at 11am. 8 ticks easy.

Third Trade : 90$ (O/B)
Outside bar at 1.30pm. 9 ticks with slippage.

3-August
=======

No trades today. I had some personal work to do. So no trading today.

4-August
=======
Not a good day. I meshed up.

Total Profit : -30$ (4 trades)

First Trade : 80$ (Three setup)
Nice I/B at 9.15AM. Long entry at 82.59. 8 ticks easy.

Second Trade : -120$ (my setup)
Around 10.30am, I drew a support line at 82.07. Entered short at 82.06. Forgot about Oil inventory report at this time. Result? Had to exit with -6 ticks on each trade.

Third Trade : -80$ (my setup)
Got resistance at 82.80 arount 11.30am. Entered long at 82.81. CL did break that resistance, but did not move after 5 ticks. Came back and I exited with -4 ticks on each trade.

Fourth Trade : 90$ (Three setup)
Nice O/B at 1.45pm. Long at 82.44. 8 ticks fine. Took some time.

There was a lot of chop on 5 minutes chart today. That caused my trades to fail. I should probably stay away on these kind of days. I saw lot of choppy bars in morning. Thought about skipping my setup, but then ignored that warning. It caused to wipe out my three setup profits.

This week, three setup is working very well for me, So I should probably just look for I/B, and O/B trades only until my setup starts giving me expected results.

Hope tomorrow will be a good day for me.

5-Aug
=====

This was a good day until 2.15pm. Then I meshed it up.

Total profit : -30$

I saw lot of choppy bars on my 5 mins chart in morning. So decided not to use my setup and just go with three setup on 15 mins chart which is more reliable.

First Trade : 80$ (three setup, O/B)
Nice O/B at 11.45am. Out with 8 ticks.

Second Trade : 80$ (three setup, I/B)
I/B at 1.15pm. 8 ticks easy.

Third Trade : -190$ (three setup, O/B)
I assumed I can trade 2.30pm bar as per three setup. But I was wrong. Took this O/B after 2.15pm and result was 19 ticks stop loss. Glad that I was not risking too much. Atleast it kept me in green zone for this week.

Three setup is very reliable if you follow exact rules. Less painful then my setup. But I keep missing few things and turn a good day into bad day. I will be reading three setup thread for few days to make sure I am not missing anything important.

I will post my charts soon...

Hi Safin,

I see your chart does not have the trading time indicator on it. Had you had the trading time indicator on your chart you would have not suffered the loss at the close.

Time of day matters !! If you trade at the close you will usually get ripped up........believe me.....I've done it.

Jeff