Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
My idea of a bull trap a few days ago turned out to be correct. I am selling 1 ES looking for continued downside into the previous 1920 congestion area. My stop will be at 1950. If I am stopped out on this trade, I will not trade for the rest of the week. In regards to VPOC, I believe the market sees value down to 1922 and up to 1950.
Edit: I'm filled at 1935.75 and of this writing ES is trading 1934.50
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I'm flat ES, lost a bit of money off that trade. For the rest of the week I'll practice the art of not trading, and making sure that the money I've made stays in my pocket.
Javajoe--don't beat yourself up over a few ticks. From the sounds of it, you snagged a great slice of the short trade in the bonds.
Time for the weekly review of my trading performance:
I have traded well around the VPOC locations. My entries were decent, but my ES trades were not really well thought out. As a trader, I run the risk of overthinking each trade that I take. When I say that my ES weren't "well thought out" I mean that I didn't look at VPOC and VWAP areas before placing the trade. I need to create my trade ideas overnight and execute during the day instead of trying to analyze and trade at the same time.
Things I did well:
1) I traded the size that I wanted to. I didn't over leverage.
2) I didn't overtrade. If I had a losing position, I didn't flip it around in hopes of making my money back.
3) I traded with the belief that my trades might not work out. I realized that the market could move against me.
4) I hit my profit goal by doing the above well.
Things I did poorly:
1) I stupidly entered an order incorrectly. Talk about a rookie move.
2) Once I hit my profit target, I continued trading.
3) I entered trades that I hadn't conducted analysis on.
4) I got greedy. I thought that my last ES trade would win, and I had already hit my profit target.
I haven't traded at all yet this week. I'm in the process of switching my futures trading from the TOS/oXpress to Ninjatrader with the CQG Mobile ability to monitor trades throughout the day. Unfortunately, CQG Mobile adds another 50 cents to each round turn in commissions. However, I believe that the peace of mind of having mobile access will be worth it.
FOMC Wednesday is this week, and the question that the market has been wondering about for quite some time will soon be answered. I don't know whether the Fed will raise rates or not. The only thing that I do know is that the announcement will undoubtedly bring plenty of volatility to the market on Thursday. Once I have my charts up and working again (technical difficulties with data feeds) I'll look at the volume profiles over the last few trading sessions to see where the market will likely find value.
Just a quick comment on the ES: I can't remember the last time that it actually created a nicely formed bull flag and broke out without causing undue pain.
Those days are always an ugly wakeup call. Sorry to hear it! What I've found works well is when I'm up on the day near my profit goal, I set a mental cash stop of 35-40% to stop trading. So, in your case, if you had made $380, you could set a mental stop of $133 to $152. If your next couple of trades go against you, you call it quits for the day and walk away with a
slap in the face (and $228!) instead of a big ol' black eye.
If you find yourself in the situation where the next "trade setup" will have you risking more than that 35-40% level, you just don't take the trade. The market will always open tomorrow, and the day after that.
For the first time in a while I am seeing what seems to be a strange confluence right around a certain price level. I've started my analysis with the 4 hour chart, extending to back before the big selloff in midAugust. The Cyan Market Profile line is VWAP, the red is the POC, and the blues refer to the 70% of volume area.
VWAP = 1964 VPOC = 1933 Upper Blue = 1987
A touch of the trendlines which I have drawn comes in around 1953 tomorrow. The two blue circles on the following chart illustrate two different points at which I believe buyers will have to step in if we are to see a move up.
Zooming into a 10 000 volume chart brings confluence into the picture. The cyan colored VWAP comes in at 1958.50, which coincides with the daily pivot point (HLC/3).
Here, we can see that the buying action throughout today was powerful, and was more than able to propel price far above the VWAP. If buyers continue to move the ES up in anticipation of a bullish FOMC announcement, I think it's totally possible that we revisit the 1987 area from the end of August. The ES had about a 30 handle rally today, which I think is easily replicable tomorrow.
However, if the bulls cannot hold the market up until FOMC volatility kicks in, I think we will see on the bearish side into 1940 congestion and the 1933 POC.
Right now, I am considering a small long at the daily VWAP = 1958 in defense of the mid morning price congestion. This also happens to coincide with the 38.2 Fib retrace off of today's ETH action. If I take the trade, my stop will be at 1948--an exact ten handles away and back inside of the trendlines.
Not too much happening. I think the chop will continue throughout the day. Jumps out of this range are definitely fade-able.
Offering small at 1974, stop at 1976, target VWAP at 1970.
End Of Day Update: I tried a couple of sells before realizing that down was the wrong direction for today. The included chart details my trades for the day. I ended up +2.75 ticks for the day.
Looking at a Footprint Chart (big thanks to Gomi for the great work) during the timeframe in which I took the long makes the reason for a long clearer. In any case that the market saw a substantially negative Delta value, the selloff was not alarmingly large. In some cases, negative deltas ended with positive 5min candlesticks. The image below details my thoughts.
In other words, the buying during this period was effective, and the selling--while present--was likely longs taking down profits instead of actual shorts entering the market.
I got long GC last night after seeing its surprising move throughout the day. In the past, when I've seen a move like this before FOMC, it has meant that somebody got the nod. Below are my entries/exits.
Similar to Wednesday, I missed a substantial portion of the bullish move. I got scared of the FOMC volatility and took profits too early--had I waited for the close, I would have hit my weekly profit goal and then some.
I can only trade in the moment though, and I believe that my decision to take a profit off of the table during a volatile trading period was a wise one. I doubt I'll be trading tomorrow. If I do, I'll look to buy GC near its VWAP at 1122. 1122 happens to coincide with the Pivot Point, and is close to a 38.2 Fib from the 9/11 recent low.
I did not trade for Monday and Tuesday because I was transferring funds to my NinjaTrader account. I'd like to say a big thanks to Paul over there, as he helped me navigate a rather finicky issue with my data connection. I did trade on Wedensday in the ES, and then I initiated an overnight position on Wed evening that I ran into the FOMC. I didn't trade on Friday.
Things I did well:
1) Like with last week, I traded the size that I wanted to. I didn't over leverage. One issue that I see with this is that I don't know when to increase size...
2) I traded with the data that was in front of me. When my ES shorts didn't work, I realized that the market was bullish and I bought it.
3) I traded with stops in each case. I let the trades work themselves out instead of taking profits or losses too early.
4) I did not hit my profit goal this week, but I reduced risk so that I didn't lose money either.
Things I did poorly:
1) In regards to FOMC, I believe that I exited my GC trade too soon. Obviously, it is now easy to see that GC caught a bid, but at the time I exited my position with a nice profit and went about my day.
2) I suppose that not hitting my profit goal can be construed as a negative. However, I want to look at my trading overall instead of the numbers that it posts.
