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Instruments: GC - CL
Time frame: 5 min
Indicators: EMA 50
Strategy: Simple R/S and price action analisys
Trade 1 CL
I thought the price would get higher and put a buy stop 1 tick above the rallying bull candle. I don't know what made me thinks the price would get higher and i don't even know why it didn't. I mean I don't find any sign of price going sideways right after. Perhaps i was just overconfident due to the good yesterday's session.
Trade 2 GC
Standard "basic" trade, price touched the support (round price 1238.0) and i put my buy stop entry 1 tick aobe the signal candle. Second leg tested the support and then bounced.
Trade 3 GC Doji with a reeeeal large shadow. It spawned and suddenly went down like rain so i thought it was breaking the trendline and follow throught but it reversed and got up. Bad decision but could have gone faar down with a good profit. Low risk. Peace
Trade 4 GC
This was a tricky trade. Due to the previous candle rally up to open i thought bulls were able to reverse that big bear bar and so the price would now follow up to new highs. And it actually did!! But i wasnt able to enter the trade in time or i would have been an insta profit. ALl the conditions were that the price would likely to touch the resistance at this point but went down to test the trendline and thats were I put another contract to cut the loss in case the price would get up slightly. At certain point i had my stop loss 15 ticks away with 2 losing contracts. And about to close the position for a medium loss. But I kept faith in my analysis and the price reverted and went up to close both positions in profit. Too bad I followed my impulse to lower the stop loss as the very next candle hit the previuos target, set at resistance, 10 ticks above, for 2 contracts, would have made the day.
Trade 5 YM
Was taking a close look to the spike Dow Jones was forming and how the price would react at resistance. Price bounced very well for about 2 minutes, signs the bulls were ok with the profit and didnt want to keep going further with the price. So i went short with a Sell market and put a take profit at support below. Again the price closed the entire gap down to 20580 cutting my profit to half. When i will be more confident i should use 2 contracts and scale in & out. 1 at take profit and other with stop loss some ticks in front of the entry point.
Trade 6-7 GC
Greed played bad here. The situation where I think, I'm doing well, 1 more trade even if i reached my goal. And this trade kills all your daily profit, or even bad. Thats the case. The price there should have gone up for a last swing high. Instead it turned against me and killed 75% of my daily profit. My very big mistake is not taking into consideration that the last 12 candles were bearing so the climax was very bearish, also in both cases I bougth the market instead of placing Buy stops above the signal candles. So 2 big mistakes.
I'm off for the day. I managed to survive to a complicated market day (at least for me that I still don't know how to trade gaps well).
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Instruments: GC - YM - CL - ES
Time frame: 5 min
Indicators: EMA 50
Strategy: Simple R/S and price action analisys
Trade 1-2 YM
A couple of "warm up" trades, just to check my confidence since yesterday was a tough trading day. As thought, lack of faith today, i'm thinking of closing the ninjatrader and studying Al's Books sooner today, lets see.
Anyway (trade1) I entered on a PB after a signal candle with a SL above the high and PT at the close of the last lower low. Scared when i saw the candle coming against me and adjusted the PT for a mere 1 tick profit.. no faith at all on my Take Profit. I should have considered I was on a weak move up and down and that it would have taken its time to get to the bottom.
(trade 2) Waited for PB on that mini downtrend but haven't considered I was too close to ema and support so when i saw the price stuck at the EMA I moved my profit to 2 ticks. The price obviously got his way down to my original profit.
Trade 3 GC
Not a bad entry, actually was pretty studied entry and well weighted in my opinion. Only thing that i didn't considered is the one that killed me. Lots of overlapping bars creating flags everywhere, not a good condition to enter as spikes are just around the corner, or at least consider a farther stop loss to contain them. I didn't, so entered above the signal candle almost sure the market would touch the HOD again (it didn't tho but I would have taken some profit for sure) should have moved my stop loss below the last spike of the previous failed BO, instead I placed it 1 tick below the support as used.
Trade 4 CL
This could have been a brutal profit trade. But again I can't let the market flow when I'm in profit. Entered early honestly, should have waited the bullish ii bars setup for a really better entry and confirmation. I thought the price would just test 53.15 and then go down further and closed the trade.
Trades 5 - 9 ES
Lots of scalp trades for the day as ES was on a trading range.
(trade 1) Entered early at bearish candle (riskier) with a stop loss 1 tick below the last failed attampt to break the support, and take profit and the resistance, again when i saw the price collapse down almost to its open I moved the target down too much.
(trade 2) Non sense entry short thinking the price would test support but it never went below the previous candle so i moved my target to 1 tick profit just to pay the fees.
(trade 3) Shorted thinking the resistance would hold the price for a reversal but it didn't and price hit my stop. Bad trade, entered short on a very bullish momentum without any signal of bears.
(trade 4) Revenge trade (very very bad emotional trade) thinking that the resistance (now support) would hold the price for falling back (how would it hold a price who recently cut throught it like butter???!?!!??). My only salvation was moving the stop loss far away from the bar but I will try to avoid such trades from now on.
(trade 5) This trade kicked me off the profit zone. On a desperate need to try and stay with the price flow instead of early closing the trades, I let the price flowing down and literally got stopped out at the worst point possible since from there the price slowly came back up and eventually close at my take profit. Again.
Trades 10 - 11 ES
2 trades that saved me from a terrible loss today.
(trade 1) Countertrend trade (but at the time I entered I dind't know it was). I thought the price would swing down after the high to at least bottom of the previous trading channel. But then the price stuck at the bottom of the trendline for a good while and i moved my profit to there. Then i realized it possibly was a trend.
(trade 2) Very weak bear strnght very few bear candles, up momentum. The price would possibly want to test yesterday's close, so i entereded this easy trade with confidence.
Today's session was the the worst session of the week. I saw a lots of good trades but i acted with a bad risk management and bad money management leading to a loss of 20$ plus commissions with a lost profit of 322$. I won 8 trades and lost 3 but these 3 trades took away all my profit.
Week-End objectives:
- Improve entry points by studing historial charts.
- Improve my Strategy
- Improve the faith on my decisions, especially on take profit targets which i move up and down too much.
- Better look at potential of trades, the capacity to see where it is good to trade or when there is not enought space for the price to generate a good move in short terms.
Thank you for reading, every comment is well appreciated and in most cases needed. Have all an amazing week-end.
20-02-2017
Instruments: GC - CL -NQ
Time frame: 5 min
Indicators: EMA 50
Strategy: Simple R/S and price action analisys
Trade 1 GC
Placed a buy stop right above ema thinking the price would open and test the last higher high. To be honest i hoped on a rally up. Moved my TP at higher high but price never touched it and exited my 2 contracts for a small 4 ticks profit.
Trade 2 GC
Price was so "zombie" today and then I realized that is President's Day today so maybe this is why. After a test of resistance i found a bear signal and entered but just for a small countertrend trade. SAVED! Went short and exited 1 tick above the last lower low for the day since then.
Trade 3 CL
Entered late and wasn't sure the price would actually test the previous spike. It never did, it just reached the area of consolidation. Should have gone for some ticks more though.
Trade 4 NQ
The price was trying to reach the HOD, there were no barriers so i just entered the market and put a stop loss below the previous BO and take profit at resistance. NO way, bulls lost strenght at the couple dojis and there was no more time to test it. So i put a trailing stop 4 ticks below the price and let it go.
Trade 5 ES
Last trade to pick up some ticks as i saw the probability.
Ok DjRonin, you requested feedback from me, so here goes.
I'm going to reference each trade by date and contract. Since you are discretionary, some of them are bang on and some hit and miss, and profitability has nothing to do with it. Bear in mind these are my opinions, so of course you are free to reject them.
Feb 9th
trade#1 CL - Excellent trade, clear uptrend, bought on retracement into weakness, exited into resistance, can't do better, your a trading god/genius.
trade #2 ES - WTF? Genius comment is taken back. trade#1 was a 5 min chart which is good, this is what time period? (I don't want to know); sometimes it's necessary to scale down from 5 minutes to 1 minute to fine tune entry, but your analysis as per chart #1 doesn't apply as there is no effective wave pattern to make an assessment as the time period is too short. Yes, there is an uptrend as in trade#1, but any stop you place will have less value due to noise.
trade #3 ES - Same as trade #2 - time period too short, if you are using a shorter time period because the contract is too large, then pick a smaller contract, like YM.
trade #4 YM - ok, here we go a 5 min chart, but why enter here? I don't like this at all. The bull move has been going for over an hour after the breakout? So you missed the start, but don't chase it. I understand you see something solid, but things change quickly. You are not trading futures or YM or Cl you are trading information which is conveyed by price action and this is the tail end of a bullish information event that occurred over an hour ago. If you want to scalp do it on the news event or on the open when there is good action so you get some "bang for the buck". You didn't make enough for the risk in my opinion. Yes, you risked 10 to make 20, but you are not taking the probability of hitting that stop and target into account. How did you pick 10 / 20 point stop and target anyway. I don't see a chart pattern here that would help pick those numbers. You can disagree here, but there are better places to make money and you want to risk your hard-earned money only on the best opportunities. BTW, don't get me wrong, I agree that buying on failed doji star is a good trade, you can see the trade took off after you bought it; but there was a failed doji star at 12:05 or 12:10 (hard to read the time on the chart) just above the initial break out, now THAT trade is the one you want. Same analysis, same risk but a much better outcome.
trade #5 CL - Again not loving this trade. First you are buying into a downtrend; if you are not used to trading countertrend (and you shouldn't be) then why are entering the trade? This lack of discipline is where discretionary trading breaks down. Your first consideration should have been to sell into resistance at 53.04 @ around 12:50pm not to buy here. Second, you paid up too much @52.85; I assume you are entering on the close, so at 5 min the momentum turned and by then the close was too high. Again using a 1 min chart to define an entry once it hits support @52.75 would have been better as you would have probably got in around 52.80. Either way, I assume your stop was below 52.75 since the low was hit, so for some reason you have assigned a higher risk here compared to your ES trades, yet you can't afford to pay up for such a low profit target (ie poor risk/reward). Notice that the holding time for a bearish trade here works in your favor, whereas for a bullish trade it works against you (ie your profit target declines over time). It's good that you have defined a target, but if you are going to do that assessment use the knowledge to make better entry decisions. a declining target is another good reason you should go with the trend (ie target direction is working for you, not against).
That's all I can say for this day. Thanks for posting and making the charts clear for easy analysis.
Thank you for your analisys you don't know how much is appreciated. Every single bit wrintten here helps me and perhaps every beginner that reads this thread getting better.
Hi guys today i realized i would do some little tweaks to my journal just to make it a little bit more readable and i decided to add to my charts some of the most important thoughts i have during the day as text. So they stick in there and I can get the best out of this journal easier.
Instruments: GC - CL - ES
Time frame: 5 min (for ES today i used volume 2000 and ticks 1000 as well)
Indicators: EMA 50
Strategy: Simple R/S and price action analisys
GOLD (GC)
Trade 1
Waited a second attempt to break above EMA and shorted 1 tick below the signal candle with stop above EMA.
Trade 2
Bad trade. Bears couldn'd go throught the Bulls pushes. NO new lower lows and when price did came down was really weak. Also on a 5 minute charts the BO was a minitrend up while the previous BOs were just sideways. I noticed that but ignored it. The 3 green candels with higher lows tails were a sign that trend strenght was already fading. My signal bar was a 1 tick bear bar after an inside doji bar 3 ticks small, "WOW!! kind of real strong bear momentum :V "
Trade 3
Entered long on that mini trend thinking there were no barriers for the price to test YLOD, but price acted strange as if it would come down from there and i closed the position with a mere 1 tick profit, btw the price did tested the resistance 55 minutes later.
S&P 500 (ES)
Trade 1 2 3
I rides the trend, all part of the same trade in fact i should have bought 1 contract and let it reach the top instead of buying 3 but I can't still resist the temptation to close positions, if i want to do swing trades i have to find a way to master my impatience.
Trade 4
I did it, again happy trigger, i feel the need to close posisions when the price runs back to me. Kind of pissed at this mental state.
Crude Oil (CL)
Trade 1
Bad trade. Fear of missing the trade, Enterede too high without confirmations just hoping the price was in a trend still. Instead i should have waited at least a test or failed BO at EMA and relative bull signal for a better entry.
Trade 2
Maybe revenge trade. Would have gone perfect but as it was a revenge trade i put my stop loss too close.
Trade 3
NO rules of entry. I sold the low on a possible trading range and when i realized that i decided to take some profit before price would bounce up again. I would have reached my 25 ticks profit again letting it go. sigh!
I love to trade and I feel i'm getting better. Charts starts to have sense to me and I'm kind of aware of where the price will go next almost all the time. I keep doing many errors while trading, emotional mistakes that hold me back still. The worst error i do is to exit early in trades and cutting in pieces my probability of higher profit. Because i can exit succesfully from 70-75% of the trades, thats my edge, but god knows how many points i throw off the window "cuz of early exiting", and then comes that 25% loss that destroy my profit.
Thats all for today. Have a nice day guys.
BTW: my timezone is UTC-3 so the time you see on charts are 2 hours ahead ET timezone.
Oil market today could be difficult. Both bears and bulls should be able to find opportunity. I think the risk management for today has to be aggressive. Market choppy / sideways likely.
Instruments: CL
Time frame: 3 min
Indicators: EMA 50
Strategy: Simple R/S and price action analisys
GOLD (GC)
Trade 1
I found an area of interest looking at daily charts around 53.50 and thought that if the price would test this area it likely revert or create a profitable BO. Was looking for a good 25 ticks profit or 70% of the falldown since last consolidation down to 53.50, set at 53.80-83. Price couldn't break resistance at 53.70 though.
Trade 2
Entered at same level at 53.51 looking for the very same setup, I found an entry after a double bottom, but the price again did not want to move above .70 resistance.
In both cases i moved my stop to a 10 ticks profit.
Easy day... stepped in... reached my daily goal of 3 good trades, 3 bad trades or 200$ profit.. walked out with 2 trades.
23-2-17 Lots of good trades, some mistakes and a 1 hour chasing tale with Crude oil.
Instruments: CL - ES - GC
Time frame: 5 min (3 min for ES)
Indicators: EMA 20
Strategy: Simple R/S and price action analisys
GOLD (GC)
Trade 1
Nice wide 30+ ticks trading range after a rally up in the morning for Gold, nice swings from top to bottom. I was looking for going long on support test and found a first inside bull bar, dediced to let it go a lil bit further to jump a possible bull trap, entered at the high of the previous bear candle instead of the high of signal bar, just in case, for a 10 ticks profit.
Trade 2
Was looking to short at the resistance but price did got throught it so i decided to try and place a Buy stop 1 tich above the breakout bar and the market gave me reason perfectly. Too bad I was so excited about the trade that i forgot i was looking for short at resistance and eventually missed a 32 ticks short setup and a 25 ticks bull setup right after.
Crude Oil (CL)
Trade 1-2
Went long thinking the price would test 54.95 resistance and stupidly entered with a default ATM of 1 tick stop loss and got insta-kicked out. Rentereded at the same price with correct SL but price went down and hit my stop for a small loss. The next candle did rallied to 54.94 but 1 tick less than my profit, not enought it would have hit my stop anyway.
Trade 3 Revenge trade, no entry rules bad trade even if decent result. A kind of trade where i don't even know where my stop loss is. At least i closed the position in time or that spike up to 54.94 would have killed me.
Trade 4-5
I thought this was the bar i was expecting to fall down so i sold at the market but there was liquidity at 54.50 i didn't figured out and the price bounced back lots of times screwing both trades. Closed 1 position breakeven and other i sold the low and got stopped right after because the price jumped back.
Trade 6
Finally! The movement i was expecting price closed the gap from 9.15AM bar (7.15 ET time) and found a lot of liquidity there so bounced back and forth but eventually felt down to 54.24, last bad entries made me exit early cause of lack of confidence.
S&P (ES)
Trade 1
Good bear momentum, went short but with bad default ATM of 1 tick stop loss and stopped instantly.
Trade 2
Pissed off from the previous trade (i did it twice today), i went short again for a few ticks profit, instead i should have realized that the price would probably test and close the gap from 21-feb at support, as it did.
This one i missed out for really few seconds. If filled would have been a 6 ticks SL and 8 PT which would have been filled perfectly
All in all i can call this a satisfatory day, lots of ticks gained, few lost ticks, few missed opportunities but the good thing is that i start to see more entries more frequently and most important on real time. Lets see how things evolves.
Loved that first gold trade, you could have bought into support a little closer to 1247.5 when it bounced at the 12:35 bar, but excellent exit into that downtrend line starting at 1250.50.
