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Catching Big Waves - a trader's journal of surfing the the markets


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Catching Big Waves - a trader's journal of surfing the the markets

  #381 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


josh View Post
Nice trade Gary--can you elaborate a little on what gave you the confidence to enter this short? And did you enter it on the way up, or the way down (before or after it broke .72)?

I had a difficult time reading the market the last two days partly due to the extra volatility. At the time of your short today I saw no clear volume indication so I decided to just wait and see. What caused you to pull the trigger on this one?


I was expecting this trade since yesterday, see previous posts. When wave 4 suggested a double top, that is when I went in. I don't recall what the exact trigger was this time, other than it did what I was expecting it to do.

If you noticed the extreme force of sellers every time the market got into that area at the top, it says I am not the only one expecting this move.

Keep in mind, even though the market could not break today, until the magenta line is broken, we still have a valid condition for a wave 5 short. The area betweeen the red and magenta lines is resistance. Friday is a tough day for short selling follow through.

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  #382 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


GaryD View Post
The w4 target shifted some after last night's move.

[IMG]https://nexusfi.com/v/xft6yk.jpg[/IMG]


EDIT 9/23/11 - I have slowed my commentary considerably, finding it time consuming sometimes, and only posted a chart image on this. What was assumed;

1) The trend is down. We just completed a major ABC correction to the upside (see previous posts)
2) Wave 3 in the new downtrend seemed to have completed, indicated by a near double bottom and a race to the top.
3) I established a target range for where wave 4 should end, above.
4) The chart below was a followup showing that the minimum expected target for wave 4 had been reached, and at that time I was watching closely for signs of a reversal.
5) Two charts below, you can see the double top had started to form. I saw there were a large numbver of sellers in that area in both the first and the 2nd hit of the highs, and so I knew other traders were expecting the same thing that I was.



REPOSTING FROM A FEW POSTS BACK

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  #383 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


I normally only trade crude, but often watch and analyze other markets just for practice. I have taken a few trades in the ES this week, which caused me to look through the other major indexes. One I have not traded much at all, but the chart pattern caught my attention, is the mini Dow futures chart.

On a weekly chart, the Dow is currently in an area of anticipated support, and just finished today on an up close, forming what could become a major double bottom. Weekly chart shown below.

[img]https://nexusfi.com/v/t56ejq.jpg[/img]




Drilling down to a daily chart of the mini-dow, a minor head & shoulders pattern (red and green arrows) may have just completed in this area as well.

[img]https://nexusfi.com/v/ccm6hj.jpg[/img]


While I am watching crude oil for a possible wave 5 down, this dow chart gives possible argument to that. But, until crude breaks above the exhaustion alternate for a wave 4, the preferred completion target is the confluence zone shown below.

[img]https://nexusfi.com/v/b89c9m.jpg[/img]

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  #384 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

Wave 4 has not yet been confirmed, but selling volume on Friday suggests we are possibly close. The target for wave 5 shown below may prove somewhat premature (until wave 4 is confirmed), but below is a rough idea of something I am watching for.

[img]https://nexusfi.com/v/4dxuj6.jpg[/img]

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  #385 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

I can't trade waves of this magnitude, or at least psychologically I can't, but I do like to study them. Looking at crude oil on a weekly chart, it appears a major ABC correction has completed. What would the presumed downtrend look like?

[img]https://nexusfi.com/v/ze7peq.jpg[/img]

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  #386 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

Watching for wave 5 down. Primary resistance is Resistance Zone 1, Primary profit target is Support Zone 1. No trade is any better than any other. Stay Safe!

[IMG]https://nexusfi.com/v/bg5e83.jpg[/IMG]

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  #387 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

As a general rule, I do not take any trades after "regular" hours. But I seem to be fixated on where crude oil is right now and am going to watch for a live entry tonight. Not staring at the charts, just letting NT run in the background. It's football night and my wife is one of the biggest Steelers fans I've met, so trading during the game has trouble all over it.

I don't have any idea where crude is going to go. Someone recently commented about my good "prediction" about crude. I can't predict. I watch patterns that I know other traders watch, and draw them on my charts. Yes, they come through very often. If you have not seen, weeks ago I posted a chart showing that crude should go up in "wave c", and then showed where it would most likely stop and reversae, and it did that too. Then, Friday suggested it would run up to a wave 4 target, and it did that too. But what you don't see is that I am not taking all of those trades. In fact, very few of them and no where near the potential they have in them.

I try to understand what other traders are looking at, watch for clues, and try to gran 60-100 ticks out of a move. I tell myself that the odds would be better, possibly, if I took a 50 tick stop for a 500 tick winner, but still go for a 30 tick stop and a 60 tick winner, because that is where my comfort zone is currently. I cannot relax while watching a 100 tick winner slip away to be a 30 tick loser. True swing traders may have their stops 200 ticks away, I am not comfortable with that... But, I actually wish I was. I think, based on my experience, that I would do better to scale into positions, go for 6 to 1 trades and be right only 30% of the time. But, since what I do currently works for me, I don't change it.

But, becoming a better traders sometimes means being uncomfortable. I believe there are better ratios out there if I can re-train my thinking further still. And so, I may take an overnight swing if crude can show me a reason why. Still not interested in a 200 tick stop, but maybe 60-80, a typical target range for me on a single trade. If the market decides to go against me, I'm not blown up. If the market goes in my favor, I may be on step one of advanced swing trading.

A word of warning; NT users and possibly others, OCO orders ride on your computer. That means if your stop los hits, your profit target will only cancel if your computer is connected to the data. And, if it is not connected, you have a naked order in the market, that if hit, has no stop loss attached to it. If anyone is considering overnight trades, you might also consider removing your OCO brackets and placing a stop loss manually.

Thanks to everyone that keeps re-visiting this page. The posting format changes for me regularly, so sorry if it becomes something that it was not before, but this is more a trading journal than it is anything else. If I keep this going for the next 10 years, what a journal it may become. My end goal is to trade for others, something I have felt compelled to do based on some deeper personal philosophy. Until I know that I know that I won't get them hurt, I trade solo.

Also, on that note, I have a friend who has lost roughly 50% of a small account value trying to trade, and he has offered to give the account balance to me, rather than just lose it to the market on his own. Weird situation.

I told him I'll think about it. If I lose it, he would have probably done the same, right? Don't know the answer yet, and probably should look into the legal aspect first. But, I said if I did, I would want to post it here as a live journal that he could see what I did, what I thought, etc, and tell me when to stop. Feedback?

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  #388 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

The chart below is a 15 minute "zoom" in to the Primary resistance zone. 81.50 area is obviously the upper end of resistance, 79.50 the lower end of support. Wil crude take all the early shorts out before heading down? Is it better to enter near the top, of better to wait for confirmation after pushing below support? That depends on how many times you expect to be right versus your risk to reward comfort level. There are 100 ways to "nail" the next trade, up or down. Will price make it back to Resistance Zone 2? If zone 1 breaks to the upside, is that a valid long? Maybe.

[IMG]https://nexusfi.com/v/c89chx.jpg[/IMG]

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  #389 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011

And on the 30 minute chart, same date and range view, I have marked points where stop losses and or buy/sell stops might be placed. I don;t take those trades, just see what volume does around those areas.

[img]https://nexusfi.com/v/g4bhwg.jpg[/img]

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  #390 (permalink)
 
GaryD's Avatar
 GaryD 
Orlando, Florida
 
Experience: None
Platform: shoes
Trading: happy
Posts: 6,462 since May 2011


When I post time-based charts they typically have lines drawn all over them. These are not automated, but something I do constantly by hand as the market moves. I have color coding that I thought might be useful for someone reading this to understand. For crude oil, left shoulder pivots are very useful for example, and I mark those with yellow horizontal lines. Right now, in the chart below, that LSP is acting as support (despite the potential for a wave 5).

Red and green horizontal lines show possible areas of stop losses, long or short. I tend to avoid entering around those areas and prefer for the market to take them out first, or provide reversal confirmation away from them. I have been blown out of a good trade too many times, so they are warning lines for me.

Any horizontal blue line (none shown below) represents prior pivot support / resistance.

[IMG]https://nexusfi.com/v/dsge9e.jpg[/IMG]

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Last Updated on May 23, 2014


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