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Specializing in the NQ with AMT - putting it together
So from my previous long target at 53.75, I totally feel like I left money on the table.
But that happens when a Double distribution happens - to me at least.
So I do know that's a weakness that I have to work on.
At least now, using AMT and profiling I can see and have a psychological explanation for what just happened.
I find it much more comforting than just using oscillators and Elliott to write it off as some extension or expansion.
All the price action gets confusing by itself without the volume backdrop.
I am anticipating that price will rotate back down, but instead it establishes a higher value area with another unit and keeps going.
Oh well. And there's not enough room or time for me to really take a long again because the unit VA's are overlapping.
The good news is that the double distribution profile tells me that there's a void in the VA that is very likely to be filled in again, AND the VPOC is still below it untested.
That's current timeframe 200%, at micro timeframe 200%, with a deep LVN and possible divergence on the oscillator.
Volume in the unit beginning at 10:30 EST is thinning, not building as prices go higher, so non-acceptance.
So I really thought that the deep LVN to the left would reject prices as unfair.
I shorted at the pink auto marker and was stopped out at the Blue auto marker. That's -3.00 or 12 ticks or -$60.
My stop was placed on the basis of it Not being accepted into the HVN area directly above it.
Target was the existing VPOC.
Given the stop out and non-respect of the symmetry, it was an aggressive short.
I'm not going to short until I see re-acceptance back into value and then a retest of VPOC or VAH of those profile structures.
I've gotta stay disciplined and see re-acceptance first, which usually means an initiative move strongly down.
There's a untouched VPOCs at 645.00 and 635.00 so I may long against those or the VAL/VAH in between them based on price character, oscillator position.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
One final trade at 3pm EST was stopped out for a loss of -2.00 / 8 ticks / $40
I had actually been eyeballing the previous naked VPOC of the orthodox initiating unit at 68.50.
It's on my previous charts of this day an I have seen soooooo many times that price returns, retests and rejects the orthodox unit VPOC. It's something I've seen Corrective price action do many times before moving in trend. It's how those deep "Wave 2" retracements happen.
In any case, I took that strong move down from naked VPOC as an initiative move back down into reacceptance.
I was trading for continuation.
I've seen VWAP of the unit respect very well.
But I could see a pretty good void in the decline profile, along with a Time usage void in the TPO profile at 54.50, so I wanted to be in just under the ledge of that at 53.25 short.
Stop was on the other side of the LVN.
-2.00 points. Sucks to end the day like that.
I could see that market bounced off previous parameter low and was bouncing off the LVN pocket from the Double Distribution.
I guess it REALLY didn't like that double Distro pocket and really saw it as unfair prices down at that 42 level.
Oh well, I didn't get the continuation.
Target was down at 35.00 for the naked VPOC from the way up this morning for 18.00 points.
So it was planned as a 9 : 1 trade.
This thing's building volume. up higher. But it's near the top of VAH on the Major chart.
In fact, the old naked VPOC short rejection WAS the EXACT high of calculated VPOC from the major chart.
So I do think probabilities lie with a downward move like I was expecting, but it's building volume in this 68 - 40 range so I just have to wait until it makes a move again.
This is the Patience part I must learn.
My whole plan of jornaling real time was pretty busy yesterday.
It's gone completely out the window today so it's 1pm EST now and I'm going to try and catch up.
In retrospect to this morning, it's painfully obvious why I should be doing this real time - TO SLOW ME THE F**** DOWN!!!
Patience is what I lacked overall.
I was able to capture screen shots of everything in real time though.
Here goes.
The major picture was that, as I suspected in yesterday's last trade post, the NQ hit it's exact VAH (also a tiny structure VPOC that VERY often gets touched and rejected from an initiative move) and backed off.
It's backed off so much that Tokyo session pushed it back outside of value.
This left London doing continuation trades and rejecting value.
What does that leave for the NY session?
I was expecting rejection and continuation downward.
I said in my head , "That's rejection, I need to look short unless it starts to accept back above 610.".
Famous last words.
My last short attempt yesterday was actually the HIGH before it collapsed overnight. Sheesh.
Here's what FOMO looks like as I experience it.
I actually did this same trade yesterday and it lost.
I was expecting continuation down from VA rejection on the major timeframe as in previous post.
I had a short mindset.
It's not on the chart, but all of the highs in the NY open session yellow box are VPOC touches and then falling away to lower lows.
The last one being a symmetrical low. Suspicious, but I didn't catch it at the time.
So what do I do? I find the Smallest possible micro timeframe and profile it.
I want to be short at VAH, or if there's multiple touches of VAH, the VPOC - so I shorted VPOC of that micro, maybe Pico structure.
Bad move.
That's FOMO for me. I think I'm so slick with the profile tool that it works on the smallest possible timeframe.
I know the picture is measuring an 8.00 point something, but it's a wrong measurement.
It was a -4.00 point / -16 tick / -$80 loss.
This is just the start of the ugliness for me this morning.
Edit: That's actually the wrong picture, but it shows the trade markers.
That picture is prep for the next trade.
But it doesn't show the profile that I was looking at, showing the pico timeframe VA. FIO won't let me change the picture when I edit. Oh well, guess I'm stuck with the pic.
VPOC had shifted down a few ticks, but it was an entry placed at VPOC in hopes of a continuation downward.
Almost immediately after a few mins, the price action was certainly not initiative and I took it off at +0.50.
A defensive move because initiation should really never look back.
This was not a short from a VAH, so no lingering was permitted. On rejection from VAL shorts and VPOC retest shorts, price has to move quickly away or it's a no go for me. Anything can happen, and the market is not on my schedule, but AMT is pretty clear about what is initiation and what is rotation. In this scenario I was looking for Initiation and this first picture below wasn't it. I suppose I could have waited for a second try at micro rotation, maybe 8 - 10 ticks, but hindsight is always 20/20 and, in the moment I just need to react based on what's on the screen.
Journaling this after hours I can see what I missed.
Price had moved back into previous value, retesting VPOC.
It it rejected VPOC, then it would've initiated down.
If not, then it would rotate around VPOC and Rally.
I failed to see the Bullish case for the opposite trade.
I failed to recognize that a double retest of VPOC is actually ACCEPTANCE back into the VA range.
I actually DONT want to take double retests of VPOC in the future.
It's either revisit VPOC, touch once and initiate away.
Because a double test has high probability of actually being acceptance - which this case was.
This analytical logic is what I missed and what screwed with my head the entire rest of the day.
VPOC had shifted down a few ticks, but it was an entry placed at VPOC in hopes of a continuation downward.
Almost immediately after a few mins, the price action was certainly not initiative and I took it off at +0.50.
A defensive move because initiation should really never look back.
This was not a short from a VAH, so no lingering was permitted. On rejection from VAL shorts and VPOC retest shorts, price has to move quickly away or it's a no go for me. Anything can happen, and the market is not on my schedule, but AMT is pretty clear about what is initiation and what is rotation. In this scenario I was looking for Initiation and this first picture below wasn't it. I suppose I could have waited for a second try at micro rotation, maybe 8 - 10 ticks, but hindsight is always 20/20 and, in the moment I just need to react based on what's on the screen.
Journaling this after hours I can see what I missed.
Price had moved back into previous value, retesting VPOC.
It it rejected VPOC, then it would've initiated down.
If not, then it would rotate around VPOC and Rally. There's really only 2 things price advertisement is likely to do around such a thick VPOC.
I failed to see the Bullish case for the opposite trade.
I failed to recognize that a double retest of VPOC is actually ACCEPTANCE back into the VA range.
I actually DONT want to take double retests of VPOC in the future.
It's either revisit VPOC, touch once and initiate away.
Because a double test has high probability of actually being acceptance - which this case was.
This analytical logic is what I missed and what screwed with my head the entire rest of the day.
I can see what I did looking back, but I was completely blind to the overall environment to the left of the chart.
I remember concentrating intently on the Developing VA and not even looking left.
I think this was the effect of Fear. It was focusing my attention. I was FOMO, I have to admit.
It didn't feel like FOMO though at the time - felt more like intense concentration and effort.
I went long on a rejection of Micro developing Value at the VAH.
I was just stepping in front of the bus, not considering that there was still a massive, thick value area to the left.
I didn't even consider that it could rotate lower into VPOC or VAL.
FOMO / Fear.
-2.00 / -8 ticks / -$40
I think this trade was the start of my insanity.
I didn't understand how I could get so turned around.
I haven't looked back at the rest of my trades today, but I'm about to and I'm pretty sure they're all going to be revenge trades. And all losses of course.
This picture actually shows the NEXT trade. I guess it happened so fast I didn't get a separate screen shot.
This is embarassing. I can't believe I'm writing this in a public forum. Looks like not many are even reading it so at least there's obscurity going for me.
Revenge trade.
I remember thinking, "If it's going to reject the VAH and then reaccept lower, then it must want to go lower, so I'll go with it".
Not even considering that I only want to trade short from the VAH and never the VPOC.
I want to stay out of the middle, that's part of my plan.
Only trade from the larger profile structure VAH and VAL as per direction unless it's a retest of a thinner VA, then it's a VPOC entry.
I'm still new to this AMT trading, so I haven't developed the habitual reflex thoughts yet that follow the AMT logic.
I'm gonna give myself a break on the shitty analysis, but not for revenge trading.
What unhinged me for the rest of the day was the fact that I totally did not recognize the potential for a massive Rally here. Which did happen.
That VPOC test was the start of a big strong Initiation move away from Value.
Looking back I can see what I missed - THE OSCILLATOR!!!!!
It was clearly working upward and holding above the Zero line.
It was actually touching the Zero line, looking to bounce off of it.
Price since the pre-market did nothing but create units and bounce off their VPOCs.
And this was no different. Price violated the 2 previous unit VPOC, now it was retesting the previous unit VPOC before moving away.
And the oscillator backed it up.
I need to train myself to stop looking at price action. Just look at unit structure development and trade that. It really does simplify the trading process.
I was so frustrated to have missed the initiation move I'd been hunting for that it just F'd me up the whole rest of the day.
I must train myself to keep looking left. Where is value?
Are we inside of outside of it.
Is the VPOC moving?
The oscillator Zero line acts like a VPOC, but What is the oscillator position relative to the VPOC?
-4.75 pts / -19 ticks / -$95
And the resolution of the trade was a massive rally that I was really mad at myself for not seeing.
I blindly shorted a longer term VAH parameter.
Didn't consider price character or the size of it. Didn't consider oscillator - lack of divergence after a big move.
Didn't look left.
Didn't even consider unit structure to see where to put a stop.
That should've stopped me because there was absolutely NOTHING in the profile except a perfectly smooth curve to suggest an unfair price level was there.
Just shorted blindly into VAH.
What I was really mad at myself for was not looking to see where a stop would go. Because a profile structure stop was like 20 points away where the curve thins out. There were no unfair prices in the curve.
And that's what the market did, it went up like 20 points.
So AMT works if you actually take the time to read the damn nodes and profile.
What worries me is that I didn't even look at the oscillator.
There's no way I had permission to short from there. So I clearly didn't even look at the oscillator.
I'm worried because that means I am not developing the habits to check myself and validate conditions and signals.
It's getting late for me so I'm gonna rap up the next 3 trades in one post.
They were 3 losses, FOMO / Revenge trades.
Bull headed, not looking left.
The screenshot is an After the Market is closed because I didn't get good screenshots of them in real time.
I traded off the DEVELOPING VAL's.
I did NOT consider the Larger Longer term structure parameters indicated by the Blue and Red arrows.
Thus, I was stopped out 3 times in a row.
I'm tired and it's late and I see now that I could've looked left and played rejection from the previous VAH instead of developing VAL.
I think the theme of the day, and all AMT trading really, is that I have to look left.
I have to look at the previous unit structures and play off those parameters.
I have to be very aware of HVN curves, and not be afraid to split a unit into 2 units, even if they overlap.
It's really the larger Leftward structure parameters that the market is using.
It's creating new units based on the old units, not creating new units in a bubble.
So I have to gauge acceptance or rejection based on oscillator position and price character.
