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11/27 - I was not going to trade today because of Black Friday but after seeing what the market was doing before I went to bed due to the Dubai story I thought there would be plenty of action this morning to play in. Still, I reduced my position size to 2 contracts because of the abnormal trading environment (short post holiday session)
MTG didn't publish gap guides today as they took today off, so I avoided any gap fill play. Since the gap was about 28pts wide it would have been interesting to see the odds, probably not too great.
Got a quick pullback winner 8 minutes into the morning. It happened too easily/quickly so I wanted to keep trading, but I stayed away. Next signal was a break-even followed by a loser (thank you trading plan).
On Thanksgiving night after we got the kids down to bed I was making some enhancements and bug fixes to the indicator and some strat backtesting while watching Valkyrie on the other monitor.
11/30 - I had a hard time sleeping last night and slept through the open. And good thing too. There wasn't much of a gap play, and the pullback indicator fired off 4 losing trades in a row! Instead, I got an extra hour of sleep and didn't lose any money. Somebody up there likes me today.
Woke up to a nice gap fill opportunity. The gap was really small so I went for the extended target (2.1pts above gap fill) and it hit in 5-10 minutes. I had a runner for another tick, kissed it but didn't fill it. It stopped out at +1 to pay for its commissions.
Got some nice pullback signals as well but didn't trade them as I was focused on the gap trade.
12/3 - Avoided a gap trade, the probabilities were low and that was the right decision as it would have been a losing trade.
Looked for pullback trades instead. Couldn't get filled on a couple of attempts to get in. then, as we were approaching the 7am hour I decided to stay away with ISM report and Ben Bernanke hearings approaching. That was another good trade to avoid as the next pullback was a loser but I did not take it. A while later I decided to trade again and couldn't get filled on a pullback which was a winner.
I was also watching the $TICK on Tradestation, looking for extreme readings to reverse on, but never got any, so didn't take any trades off of the $TICK either.
Eventually, I ran out of time and needed to end my trading day (get to work). So, in the end, it was a hectic morning of not trading. Sometimes not trading IS trading.
I can happily conclude that it was a successful day since I executed my plan and didn't lose any money.
12/4 - No gap trade, huge up gaps after the positive jobs report gave gap fill a very low probability (50% win rate, 0.80 profit factor)
The market ran up higher after the open. Picked off a pullback trade on the way up for a quick winner. At that point I'd usually stop trading but I deviated from my plan because I wanted to try trading the $TICK. Got a signal and took it to go short. Market moved close to my first target, then roller-coastered close to my stop, then went back down and sloshed around for a bit ahead of the factory orders report at 7am. I was sitting on a small profit at that time and took it, locking in a small profit ahead of the news. I didn't want any news surprises to take it away from me. It would have been better to stay in as it eventually did hit my targets, but staying in my position ahead of the news was more gamble, less trade. Turns out the better-than-expected report didn't really affect the market and it resumed its pullback.
12/7 - MTG recommended not taking the gap fill trade but the probabilities were too high for me to ignore so I went for it but with a smaller position size. The gap did fill within the first 25mins for a nice 3.5+pt winner. I originally had an extended target but decided to lower it close to gap fill as I considered the moderators comments some more about some of the reasons he did not take the gap fill trade.
12/8 - Actually, the first trade was taken last night. I was setting up my new laptop, which arrived yesterday, and was watching the Euro and playing with BetterVolume2. I noticed a lot of times when you get climax moves you get some scalpable follow through on the next bar, but not always. Anyways, I took a shot at one climax-up bar and went long, but it reversed and stopped me out. I should probably backtest the probabilities of that entry some more. Then I noticed the high volume churn bars often signal reversals. I took the next one for a recovery and a small profit for the night. I should backtest this reversal strategy as well sometime.
This morning the gap trade was a no-go. Probabilities were really low, so I stayed away, which was the right move as the gap grew even wider at the open.
I then picked off a pullback trade, which stopped out at BE. I targeted 5ticks instead of my usual, hit 4, then my ATM moved to BE, and the stop was hit before finally making the down-move I was expecting.
Later I took another trade based on low $TICK values, hit the primary 2pt target and the runner stopped out as I tightened my stop, by just one tick, then proceeded to hit my eventual 4pt target without me.
Overall a good day, but could have been better with a little better money mgt, trusting my initial plan and a little luck in just eeking out another tick here and there. I had some really great entries, just could have made more with better money mgt.
Nice to see someone else working with BV2, my favorite 'it's automatically on every chart' indicator.
Re painting: I usually have 2 BV2's on the panel, one which paints the bars and calculates on the close, and another which does not paint the bars and just shows the current volume bar as it is forming but without painting. This is because only once the bar has formed is its final range and volume known, both of which are used for determining how to paint it.
Barry's ideal setup/use of the Climax and/or Churn bars is, as you say, to notice possible turning points but what he likes to see is (for buys, say):
First you have a nice move down, usually with a Selling Climax bar. Then you have the Churn or Climax Churn indicating possible turn; then you have a buy bar and/or a nice pattern HH breakout to the upside.
I find also that especially when you get a couple of Climax/Churn bars together and a buy pattern happens but then mkt turns around and takes out the recent low at the Climax/Churn support level, that these can often be faded, i.e. the bulls tried to turn it, made their best effort, but the sellers have beaten them back down again.
After monitoring them for a while, I find using the 'use 2 bar' option seems to be better as well. I would be very interested to see statistical output using the single bars as entry triggers and stop determinants. Suspect they will do fairly well, but always best to use with reference to recent and longer term pivots / SR. Also, not all climax/churn bars are the same: sometimes conditions are choppy in general with generally light - or slow rather - volume. Tick charts always look the same so this is hard to see and I have found his indicator does seem to do better with Tick than minute charts. But you can compare the volume levels in the histogram. If it is both a Climax or Churn and relatively high volume for the day/week (versus just the default 20 bar lookback), which one can determine simply by knowing the market and comparing the volume histogram level to usual action the past X hours/days, there is more likelihood that significant SR/turning point is now forming.
