For an overall picture I watch the dx. Here is an example you can see the dx has been going down since the drop on the week of 11/7/22. That is a 20 bar simple moving average and it is easy to see it violently dropped through it. I color code the bar color based on if the "middle" of the bar is above or below it hlc3 ((high + low + close) / 3):
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my main goal is to always trade in the direction of the /ES trend on all timeframes. When I say timeframe I don't mean a specific size of bar. I mean a period of time. I look at about 9 months, 3 months, 1 week, and about 12 hours worth of price. The size of the window determines what the bars are for each of those. Several years ago I trained myself to only use a laptop because I was so dependent on multi monitors. Now I can be anywhere with a laptop and trade comfortably. So to be able to look at all those ranges at once I have 9months as weekly bars, 3months as daily, 1week as hourly, and 12 hours as 1minute bars. I also have another small chart that is zoomed in and has about 1hour worth of 1minute bars and also shows $TICK.
I look at a few other things besides ES to have a feel for the overall big picture: dx/6e, 10yr bond, gold, and vix. They move together or inverse but looking at all of them I am able to see what is going on. For example here is 9months of ES with the same weekly bars and 20 sma. It looks a bit choppy but with referencing the dx chart they both have the trend change around sep/oct (9/26 top for dx, 10/10 low for es). Confirmation (for me) is 11/7. The drops in es since then don't mean as much to me because the dx is still moving lower.
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On the next shortest timeframe I color code it the same way so it is obvious which way I should be trading:
long starting the beginning of the year, short mid feb to mid march, and long since. The daily I never go against with anything other than really small size and quick trades (and I really shouldn't even do that but it is fun). I do go against the longest timeframe (9months weekly) but I keep that in mind for position sizing. Meaning when shorting mid feb to mid march it was smaller size because it is against the longest trend.
One of the important things is that I am not predicting the trend. Predicting would be that it currently looks really high and it is rolling over. Instead I am observing the current trend and on daily it is still making higher highs and higher lows. Even if I think it could have a big drop any second I don't anticipate that and instead trade what is currently happening.
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zooming in one more level to the week when looking at the highs and lows it is either flat (if it can make another high tomorrow) or going down since tuesday high.
As a side note the reason I want to be on the right side of the trend is to make money (obviously) but more importantly as protection. Here is the 2020 covid crash:
In mid feb 2020 I am not thinking this is too low I need to buy or hold anything. I am thinking it is trending down I need to be shorting (until it is trending up).
Here is an example of how I enter the trade and manage the scalp:
This is showing two long trades. It could also have two short entries (and one exit) but like I said previous I trade with the longer term (daily) trend which is still above 20 sma. The mid term trend (hourly) is down so I am going against that but I use lower size than if it was going up.
The bottom is the $TICK and I show above 0 if the absolute value of the high is greater than the absolute value of the low. Values greater than 700 are green, less than -700 red, and yellow if the previous was on the opposite side of 0.
The entry trigger is the low (red) tick and the actual entry is the yellow after. What I am doing is catching the bottoms of the short term trend but with the longer term trend.
As soon as I do that I put a stop right below the low. As the trade goes with me I move the stop up quickly to profit. As it moves further and breaks the 60 sma (the bar turning green) I move the stop to the bottom of that bar.
When I get a high tick (green) and then a yellow I exit. I could flip the other way and trade short but generally I don't do that because it isn't with the longer trend.
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