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Specializing in the NQ with AMT - putting it together


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Specializing in the NQ with AMT - putting it together

  #41 (permalink)
cpuz
Phoenix, AZ
 
Posts: 67 since Feb 2016
Thanks Given: 3
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Betting that the major LVN bubble would hold.
I didn't draw the Trend channel for the first trade, but did for the second attempt.

1st trade stopped out because I used the micro HVN as a stop.
It was hit.
Seems on these smaller timeframes, the HVNs don't mean as much. It's often more traditional chartist stuff that works more frequently for accuracy.

2nd trade was very frustrating. It went all the way up way into profit and it looked like it might develop a double distribution bell.
I didn't have the -50% line on the Trend channel at the time, but I did after the fact.

To do better, I should have recognized the potential to fail as the profile got thinner up at the top and just taken profit.
Anticipating that the VPOC would act as a magnet and rotate price down again.

I'm trying to ignore price action like Dalton says. But it's really difficult to just read the profile because in this case, there were hints of a double distribution happening. Yes, there was VPOC staying down low, but it wasn't until price dipped below the upper purple channel line that something was wrong.

Very frustrating. I have to just take small profits and stay in timeframe, which means I'm gonna have to give up larger runs because that's staying "in-timeframe" for the one symmetrical move.
I can't bet on a continuation happening because a double distro may never happen and then it breaks down too fast to react.
Just go for symmetry and that's the end of the trade.


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  #42 (permalink)
cpuz
Phoenix, AZ
 
Posts: 67 since Feb 2016
Thanks Given: 3
Thanks Received: 38

I saw the sharp move down that washed me out of my previous profitable long at break even.
It's frustrating even journaling about it.
It washed me out at the exact low of the move.
Which actually probably means that Many traders took a long and put their stops there and the market was attracted to the market orders there. Kicked them off, and the rallied.

I thought it was an "impulsive" move, but that's EW terms and not AMT. I'm still struggling to see the market in AMT terms and profiles.
I shorted VPOC within the VA, which is a NO-NO. Hoagland always says that he wants to stay out of the middle of the VA.
Only trade on the edges of the VA for rotation or rejection.

I was looking for an initiative move and after some minutes and a few bars I wasn't getting it so I took it off at breakeven.
This was an impulse trade as far as I can see. I was just eager to get back in somehow, even if it was the other direction.
This was in a danger area at the VPOC and not near any extremity parameter.


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  #43 (permalink)
cpuz
Phoenix, AZ
 
Posts: 67 since Feb 2016
Thanks Given: 3
Thanks Received: 38


Sliding back in the chair looking at the chart, it struck me that it's a series of fractal patterns.
Namely EW Expanded Flat patterns, or Dalton "destination trades" where the market peeks above /below value, and then goes in a straight line to the other side of value, in this case the VALows.
It did it 2x in a row.

I have got to figure out when a "destination trade" move is just that, or when it is truly an initiative reversal move.
That "peek above" often gets me, as it did in the morning.
And then the ensuing "peek below" totally messes with my head. I think "strong move down, it will repeat, go short".
Some thoughts are that the peek above usually creates a symmetrical move above value, as it does below.
Sometimes it does stop short of the extreme rotational prices though, probably when value shifts around a bit.
I'll have to keep an eye out for these fake-outs.
I know that the EW Expanded Flat C leg trades / Destination trades are very quick money makers as they wipe out stops on both sides of Value.
I do wonder if reading order flow or accumulated delta would help identify this better.


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  #44 (permalink)
cpuz
Phoenix, AZ
 
Posts: 67 since Feb 2016
Thanks Given: 3
Thanks Received: 38

I was watching the profile for signs of continuation and I noticed it was thinning out, not fattening up.
Higher prices not being accepted.
I eyeballed the point of initiation near VPOC and swung it back to the other initiation point.
The 200% level was just about the top.
I jumped the gun thinking I missed the entry and entered too low looking for a double top.
I should actually know better by now that exact double tops and bottoms are actually very rare and I should've looked higher. I haven't seen more than 3 about 2 weeks now looking at a 610 tick chart, so I think it's pretty rare.

I actually caught the high bar, but chickened out of the trade.
I didn't check divergence and I didn't have it so I exited at break even.
I was looking fora trade back to at least the VAH, possibly the VPOC since it was only a few ticks lower.
And it ended up hitting the target, but I didn't participate.

It was actually against my plan to be calling tops like that.
Impulse trade. Bad.
But nice to see that the concepts of AMT do work with the thinning profile, minus development showing eventual short term direction.

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  #45 (permalink)
cpuz
Phoenix, AZ
 
Posts: 67 since Feb 2016
Thanks Given: 3
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Last trade was very late in the day but I left it on with OCO order to see what happened.

It blew by my 200% target and executed at the 261.8% level.
There are some other lows within the last Value area to use, but I specifically used this grid BECAUSE of the relevance it had with the 61.8% level at 5790.0 as it consolidated just before taking off.

This was a perfect setup, and I need to train myself to just look for this and ignore everything else.
Easier said than done.

This was:
Developing profile with thick P shape high in the profile.
A High Vol shelf defect just below value.
Price advertises once to fill the LVN void below Value.
Price advertises again to test the HVN defect.
Price in a clear geometric channel drawn from the extremes.
VAL creeping up over time throughout the profile, coming to meet price. Value is migrating to price.
Long just above the trend channel low where other pattern traders will also place orders.
In coincidence with that HVN for a recheck of that price.
Stop behind where the profile thins out or 5 points max below.
Oscillator above or touching the Zero line, for a zero line bounce.

Target is 200% of last initiation move.

Worked out perfectly after the market reopened and put my faith back in AMT.

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  #46 (permalink)
cpuz
Phoenix, AZ
 
Posts: 67 since Feb 2016
Thanks Given: 3
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I couldn't believe how far this market has rallied and cleared that giant value area from 3 weeks ago.
It's up there for sure, but leaving huge, wide and deep LV pockets behind it that may want to be filled in eventually.
In particular, that big Red rectangle is a giant void.

I identified a void that was currently supporting the market at the open.

This was not a destination trade situation because it was the 1st leg down.
So it either finds support here and the bubble hold and does not pop, or pops the Blue LVN bubble.

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  #47 (permalink)
 
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 matthew28 
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cpuz View Post
I have got to figure out when a "destination trade" move is just that, or when it is truly an initiative reversal move.

Not pretending I have all the answers, or am even live and profitable, but it seems to me you have to look at the market, decide where you want to trade, then just put the trade on. If the market stops you out, so be it.
If you wait for it to be completely clear what kind of move it is you are quite often already so far away from your ideal entry area/pre-planned entry area, that you have a much bigger stop than you want and always seem to get in just before the market retraces and shakes you out.
Remember Dalton about price just being an advertising mechanism. Price goes down until it finds buyers, and up until it finds sellers. One of their webinars recently they mentioned that one of their experienced clients had said that day trading is just inventory going from one extreme to another, ie it goes from people getting too long to people getting too short, so trade value, don't chase price.
And as you said, the market is fractal. Sometimes you can just feel when the market is really pushing to take out a recently constructed weak or poor level and has spent an hour or so hammering away at the level with every retracement being bought and inventory getting longer and longer; then as soon as price gets through it immediately gets jumped on by slightly bigger picture sellers and all the people who got long looking for the big break have to bail out. I have got stuck before because I forgot which timeframe I was trading and threw money away in the chop after my initial trade setup had already got to the target area I had earlier defined. I need to only trade from one side of MY range to the other then stop and wait for a new range and trade.

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  #48 (permalink)
cpuz
Phoenix, AZ
 
Posts: 67 since Feb 2016
Thanks Given: 3
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I've been following FT71 (and still do), but he loses/confuses me because he cites too many statistical studies that he considers. He doesn't use the overnight session data consistently, which I find essential because it includes the London session activity as the banks/funds practice "follow the sun" trading between global offices. He is at the core, a LVN reversal trader that does not get into the flow of what the OTF is doing. I have personally not seen that LVN reversals are better than HVN reversals combined with sequence filtering and a rotational noise stop - thus I am a HVN analysis trader. He only covers the S&P which I find too expensive to trade, in terms of tick value and range, for a beginning trader. He stresses theoretical average tools and expertise to reading order flow at the point of entry, but asserts that entry price doesn't matter. Since I don't have his years of order flow nuance reading behind me, I can't use these tape reading techniques in a timely manner. So I find his Methods frustrating and confusing because they are not what I feel are congruent with the Best parts of AMT. But his logic and visualization techniques are sound and I do utilize much of his language and a few of his best ideas. FT is a sharp guy that I admire, but I unfortunately cannot emulate or imitate him directly.

I've taken some months to do some more reading, listening, watching, and tool building. I've found the process to really make me think about what's going on, what it means (to me), and where does my own and market price discovery inconsistency come from.

The concept of "when do I know I'm wrong" has always plagued me. I'm pretty sure I know where the problem stems from (for me), but I am not going to journal about it because it just makes me upset thinking about how much time I wasted on it and I want only positive deliberate things in this journal going forward.

It occurred to me that the answer is intertwined with answering "what exactly am I looking for" and then categorizing everything else as normal price oscillation/noise or "I am wrong". Conversely, the answer to "when do I KNOW I am wrong" has led me to "when do I KNOW I am right" and to apply similar techniques to "knowing".

The issue became for me to figure out how to figure out what "normal noise" was, because it doesn't make sense to be stopped out by it only to have a position move into profit. I am Always trying to figure out where the larger timeframe (OTF) player will step back in to defend their position - that's exactly the price where I want to enter. Then there is often noise around that level. And if the OTF player does not step back in, then the opposite side is in control and my position trade guess is wrong. That is the basic mission statement of my entire AMT trading business in 3 sentences.

With this purpose, I am hopeful to find that my ego can handle being wrong about a Guess if someone bigger than me will come back to the party. I know now that my ego Cannot handle identifying a visual pattern, doing a bunch of calculations and then being wrong about it.

Immediate initiation or rejection or some noise around entry should be a profitable situation. So 2 of 3 situations I want to profit from. 1 of 3 I want to take a loss - when the larger player does not show up again and I take a full stop out. Kind of like how selling options is supposed to work.

But what is "noise". That's what I've spent a few months figuring out for myself. I have a way to integrate it into my trading on my chart canvas to reduce the occurrence of order placement, number translation/transposition, and calculation errors down to Zero. The theory is that I am able to concentrate on the price action and order flow instead of calculating numbers in my head relying on working memory.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm looking for basically 5 things based on Price action on my major timeframe 32 reversal chart. This is essentially my "homework":
- What news events are planned for the day?
- Where are the Strong Initiations?
- Where are the visible Consolidation areas?
- Where are the Weak highs and lows?
- Where are the Strong Rejections?
- Are there any Support/Resistance shelves forming?
I label these up with arrows, rectangles, triangles and ray lines for my homework.

What's different this time? I have straightened out what the 5 different price action features mean to me in my own jargon. I have defined and focused in on what I am looking for in my 3 main setups. I have a proven mathematical way of calculating the rotation harmonic for a market to intelligently place stops and targets.

This week is my first deliberate practice opportunity beginning 3/27/2018 with 4 trades.
And today with 2 trades.

I'm getting back on the horse with goals of:
- Habituating myself to process following, decision making consistency, and execution.
- Building a paper trading expectancy
  • Still the NQ on 06-18 contract - because it has greatest volatility/price discovery data of all the US indexes at a reasonable risk tick value
  • Higher timeframe is 32 reversal.
  • Trading timefram is 8 reversal.
  • Risk is 1 tick beyond 1/2 to 3/4 of 1 Standard Deviation unit.
  • First profit target is at 2 Standard Deviation units with an option to exit early or follow based on the real time participation of the OTF.
  • Trading 1 contract.

Currently this amounts to about $200 of risk on each NQ trade. 2x more than my current belief limitations would like, but according to my analysis and forward testing, this is the noise harmonic for this market at this time. It should contract over time as it seems high right now.

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  #49 (permalink)
cpuz
Phoenix, AZ
 
Posts: 67 since Feb 2016
Thanks Given: 3
Thanks Received: 38












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  #50 (permalink)
cpuz
Phoenix, AZ
 
Posts: 67 since Feb 2016
Thanks Given: 3
Thanks Received: 38





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