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This current journal contest is solely for Ninja users, sadly enough.
There's a point to that, of course, because Mike needs to find sponsorship for the prizes, and NT is very commonly used here. But it does cut out some possible participants.
I will work from my higher time-frames to the smaller ones.
Here is my largest time frame!
Daily Chart:
The things I look for here:
(Remember that this is vague. I say this because everyday is different, so I look at different things on different days: this is just an overview)
-Where are we in the macro trend? Currently we are fairly bullish as we are above +1SD on the YTD-VWAP (If you don't understand, don't worry )
-Large supports and resistances (S/R)
-Volume. Is it decreasing as we go higher? Is it growing as we go higher? Are we really low on volume? Etc..
-Average Daily Range (ADR): of the last 20 days, what has been the ADR? What can I expect for the range to be? What are reasonable targets? Where is ADR-High? ADR-Low?
-Where are we relative to past prices? (All-time-highs lately, so this part is not "as important")
There we go! This is possibly my least used chart right here. Still important, but not critical.
If you have any questions regarding my terminology, the chart, or how I use it, just ask!
I am quite busy with school starting and what not, but I will try to get the rest of the charts out here as quick as possible!
The things I look for here:
-What is the trend? Is it strong? Weak? How long can we see this lasting?
-Where are areas that OTF (the big boys/hedge funds/investment banks etc.) may participate?
-Areas of support/resistance.
-Price in relation to pivots and the Monthly VWAP
I really like this chart. As you can see I draw trendlines and such, but I DO NOT trade off of them. Just as an easy reminder of trends. I find that some of my nice swing trade ideas can come from this chart.
The chart looks a little messy and that is because a new month has started so the chart is recalculating the new VWAP and pivots.
Once again, vagueness is a necessity here. The market is ever-evolving and you need to adapt to it.
Thanks for following along! I promise to finish this stuff up so I can start the journal soon!
Things I look for:
-Trend of course
-S/R areas
-Price in relation to the Pivots. Are we seeing some OTF players in the market? If so, I know where to expect them.
-Price action
-Price in relation to historical prices
I think this is one of my favorite charts as well. I use it to determine most of my entries as well as formulating my hypothesis on the market.
Very useful chart.
I know the "Things I look for" list is really vague and you may not be able to get too much from it, but these things will be explained when I use them in real-time trading.
first congratulation on your journal. I find it very interesting!!
the following is not meant to criticize your approach in any way. just offering a different view. when you say "the big boys" and areas they like to participate. do you believe they look for pivots and monthly vwap? could be, I don't know. but when it comes to investment banks, I believe they have different models as when and why to participate. also I believe fundamentals are more important for the decision than technical analysis.
now to the execution part. let's say the decision has been made for an investment. the order has been given to a trader. it could be a discretionary order, a limit order etc. could be anything, I don't know. but if it's a really big order, I guess it's more in a discretion way, spread over the session. in that case I'm fairly certain the trader is not going to execute the whole order around a predefined area. that would be gambling, because the trader wants to (has to) look good at the end of the day. maybe by beating the daily vwap. so you're not taking that kind of risk.
the point is, the current price action might give you more clues than the past. in other words, don't forget to adapt to what's happening right now.
again I'm not saying what you're thinking and doing is wrong. and I'm pretty sure you pay attention to current price action as well. but for newer traders I think it's important to understand that anything is possible and we need to change our view if the market doesn't agree.
I most definitely agree with everything you are saying! And no, I do not think pivots and VWAPs are where they play. These tools are just ways for me to frame the market and where it's price is relative to historical prices.
Since it has been very range-bound and the summer, we have not seen many "big boys" in the market. Do you think they want to buy at the center of a range? No, they are looking to buy value. Also, I am thinking that OTF will be interested in prices on the larger time frame since they tend to trade over a longer time frame. They are not looking at a 1-minute chart to make money
This is a deep subject and very complex for this journal at the moment. I would love to discuss it more though!
As far as fundamentals and such, I watch inter-market relationships very closely as well as cross-asset allocation, and sector rotations etc.
What I look for:
-Over night High and Low (This photo is not accurate. I need to fix how it plots this)
-ETH-VWAP which is the VWAP from 00:00 to 23:59:59
-Take a gander at ON (Over night) price action
This is my LEAST used chart. It is on the far side of one of my screens. If the ON-High or Lows interest me, then I will just plot them on my trade chart. If the ETH-VWAP is of interest to me, then I will look at it, but otherwise I do not use this chart often
