Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Monday, November 8th - We got decent sized gaps down but only ES was faded. I thought about setting up YM's D-CL zone, but the DIA gap guides didn't support it. The trade lasted all day long and was closed out at the end of the day for a small win. I was awake watching the market as it unfolded, but I'm much better off staying away while these trades play themselves out. I considered closing it out and getting short as market internals were very weak most of the morning.
Tuesday, November 9th - We have good gap setups in all 4 markets. The bots took gap trades in YM and TF but the ES and NQ gaps were too large relative to yesterday's range per Dr. Steenbarger and the 40% rule. All 4 gaps filled quickly in the first 15-30 mins.
Wednesday, November 10th - The markets opened up with very small gaps, none of which were tradable.
I took two first-hour trades, playing the breakout of the morning's highs and picked up 2 nice winners. This is the first time I've traded FHTs in more than one instrument. I've done pretty well with these on TF and after some recent research I was feeling confident about ES.
Thursday, November 11th - I only set up TF for a gap trade. The probabilities across the board were not very good. We opened down way too low for a gap trade, but TF did fill it's gap later in the day in what would have been a nice 60 tick ($600 per contract) win.
I took a TF long breakout but on SIM due to it being a holiday and lighter volume I wasn't sure there would be enough energy to push the market beyond it's range. That also worked out for +30 SIM ticks.
Friday, November 12th - Most gap guides were weak but I saw one I liked in NQ and TF. NQ triggered and the gap came close to filling but the market turned around and went down all day.
Monday, November 15th - Gap guides were solid for a few instruments. I set up ES and NQ and YM. YM was weaker and below my usualy threshold but the DIA guides were stronger and tipped the scales for me. ES and NQ worked out, YM stopped out.
Wednesday, November 17th - We had a minimal but tradable up gap in NQ that quickly gave me a +10 tick gap fill before turning around.
I took a first-hour trade later in TF. The market stalled at the highs of the day after I took a breakout high trade, then at the end of the day bounced hard to the downside, stopped me out near the lows of the move, then recovered at the close near my entry.
During the big move down in the last hour I noticed TICK readings < -1100 so I tried to get long ES at 1175.00 but I didn't get filled. That would have been a nice 3+ pt trade.
Thursday, November 18th - No gap trades, the market open up with large up gaps that were not favorable.
After a big run-up at the open I got long YM and TF on 1st hour breakouts. I have to admit it was hard to get long after such a large run-up, but I'm following my plan.
Then, the market went sideways most of the day and I thought "Oh no, this is just like yesterday" and I thought about getting out during the sideways action, but I'm following my plan.
Sure enough, right around 12:30pm, just like yesterday, there was a big wave of selling that bounced off of huge negative TICK readings and recovered, just like yesterday.
This time, though, while I was stopped out on the more volatile TF, just like yesterday, I was still OK in YM. The YM closed out with an end-of-day stop for a small gain.
Hmm, so the strategy is that, for example, if there is a gap down, take ES for example, of 3pts, and after the open it goes down another 3pts below the open and has not filled the gap, you would go long at that point and target the open? This is akin to my "fade the fail" setups, but only if there are good probabilities of gap fill. That happens a lot on a gap and go, the open is often re-tested. Today was a good example. Let's use TF, but all the equity indexes did this today.
My gap trading is based on research I buy from MasterTheGap, tailored to my own very discretionary style, but executed with an automated strategy in Ninjatrader ("gray box" trading).
