Hello Shodson I was just wondering what your use think or swim for charting or execution. I also use but just for charting. Also what instruments do you trade regularly? Besides Piano.

incometrade 

Hello Shodson I was just wondering what your use think or swim for charting or execution. I also use but just for charting. Also what instruments do you trade regularly? Besides Piano.

I used to use ToS from when I used to trade stock options. Currently, I just use it for charting internals like TICK, TRIN, etc since I can't get that from ZenFire. Also, it's good at getting daily/weekly continuous contract data for futures but NT7 does a better job at that than 6.5 did so I'm not using ToS as much for that.

As far as instruments, I trade gaps and FH breakouts all 4 index futures markets (ES, YM, NQ, and TF). Occasionally I trade CL and 6E too but lately not so much, but I still study those markets. I like CL on the 15min and forex on the 1hr or 4hr time frames.

Thursday, January 6th, 2011 - Got two small winning gap trades, gave it all back with a losing FH trade.

ES: +11 ticks
YM: +9 ticks
TF: -31 ticks

I wasn't happy with my FH trade. I wasn't looking for revenge, but I saw a better FH oppty to recover some of my earlier losses shortly after getting stopped. The setup was to fade the lows of the first hour, which had better probabilities, but we were already well below the lows of the first hour, way below, so I thought I'd wait for the market to tell me it wants to stop going down and then go long. The trade touched my profit target but then stopped me out 7 ticks lower. While it was a winner I'm not happy I gave up 7 ticks after it touched my target.

ES: +10 ticks

Friday, January 7th, 2011 - I set up to fade gaps on all 4 indexes, 3 of them triggered what would have been winning gap trades, but I forgot to enable the strategies again, something new to NT7. So I was left out of $302.50 profits on that, bringing the cost of this new feature up to $967.50 of missed profits.

I wasn't around to take any FH trades so didn't trade anything at all today. The low breakdown was a winner but the guides didn't really give you a reason to take such a trade anyways.

NO TRADES

Took a discretionary trade, failed. The previous day's range was 8pts, 5-day ATR was 11, we had a 12pt range already in the morning so I liked getting long towards the bottom of the range. Range expanded to the downside against me though. The increased volatility is probably due to the jobs report. I knew that was a risk but I figured the market had all morning to cast its vote. I guess it wasn't done.

Good thing I didn't widen my stop to 1260.00, I seriously thought about it.

Trading against the trend too much methinks I am.

ES: -12 ticks

shodson 

Trading against the trend too much methinks I am.

OK, so I saw what I thought was a good with-trend retracement once that medium sized bar was engulfed, hoped for one more push towards that swing low. The volume profile on those two hammers weren't very convincing so I thought there'd be another push down. It didn't work. I was just on the wrong side of the market today, twice. Good thing my stops were not very large, still discouraging though. 1260-ish turned out to be good support after all if you endured the 2-3 pts of heat below it.

ES: -8 ticks

When I read your call in the Skype room for your counter-trend trade, I really though "oops, this is not going to work...". But after the fact, looking on my charts, I think it was a good try, which may have work: a bullish doji, support (for me) @1263.75, so why not, good R/R ratio...
But the market was nervous, the previous bars were very bearish, we were not to far from the VWAP, the next doji was much better for a CT trade:


The second short was not a bad idea, you have been unlucky on this one.

Anyway, it's very very easy for me to comment after the facts

I've mentioned this before.... I don't think using time charts are good when trading intraday, since by waiting 15 min, most of the move is already done..... Using lower time frames such as 5 min, gives too many false signals. I've been proven wrong by someone who trades inside bars, but he trades it on a highly trendy and volatile market like the CL. I STILL don't think it works well on the ES IMO. I've done alot of testing on this, the best market was the NQ, and it was about 50/50 at best. The problem is that when you get these huge hammers, you have to put your stop ALLL the way below it, so your risk/reward is skewed...

again, your welcome to do your own tests if you want, but IMO it doesn't work well.
There's one guy called MA perry that trades hammers exclusively, but he has like 5 pages of explanations as to what are considered valid and when to take them. Your welcome to google him if you want, but it seemed tooo complicated. He even mentions that taking a hammer formation by itself is suicide. He only takes it based on context.

Hope that helps.

shodson, I cannot wait to curl up and read your journal one day. Part of me
feels other people's journals are private and none of my business and the other part is
exclusively immersed in everything I need to learn myself right now. But I wanted
to drop in and tell you again how grateful I am for the help you provided last week in
Costa Mesa. Today is Saturday so did we really meet a mere three days ago on Wednesday?!
Is that really right? I'm telling you it feels like years. You gave me enough to fill
a life time. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Those basic skills you showed
me have given me tools to learn so much more that is totally beyond my belief. But
more importantly learning is now fun and creative and I am not filled with the fear and
dread that gripped and overwhelmed me before I met you. I don't really know how to
acknowledge my debt to you but if you think of a way please advise. I know I have already
told you how much appreciation I feel but my experience is more than words can express.
Please let me know if there is ever anything I can do to reciprocate. Again, many, many
thanks. plethora