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I am relatively new to trading the YM (1 contract at the moment).
I would be interested to hear what levels you have marked on your chart. I am conscious of the fact that you can have too many levels and end up confusing yourself.
At the moment I have daily pivot and mid pivot levels. Yesterday's high and low and today's open.
Do you see any value in marking the high / low of the pre market?
What about 00, 20, 40, 60. 80......or 00, 25, 50 and 75?
Any thoughts? What do you consider to be the key levels?
Tom
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Hi Tom --- I often trade the YM using Range Bars ( 4R norm but often 6R during the regular trading hours (RTH)
As for levels, it is easy to have all sorts of pivots and S/R lines/Market Profile etc so you get can end up always bumping up against something or waiting for something and never trade at all!!. IMO best to try to keep your charts relatively clean. I use Ensign again these days and just have the Daily Lines (faint setting) set for H&L of the last 3 days and yesterdays close. I also manually draw ( and subsequently delete) short term trend- lines where I think they will be of potential significance.
I focus on a few patterns I'm 'hard wired' into seeing in real time. I filter these with just two specialist MA's one for trend the other for momentum. I use a momentum indicator for confirmation. I also use the Ensign Ergodic Indicator as confirmation. I like this indicator and have used it over many years --but no doubt many others would be adequate/ even better.
I want to test something. It's simple. Place some random lines on your chart prior to the day opening, and see if at the end of the day you feel like those lines were important (try to imagine they weren't random, but some expensive or complicated …
Pivots, fibonacci levels, Gann etc are largely self fulfilling. As Bramhall17 mentioned, it is easy to add so many levels to your chart that you end up doing nothing. You're constantly 'blocked' by conflicting levels.
Personally I just stick to basic support and resistance within a structure of what the market is trying to do (range, trend, higher time frame, etc). Im not saying that is the right way of doing it (there is never only one way to do something in trading). Im saying it is right for me. You need to find what is right for you.
I trade the NQ, ES & YM. I mark my levels basically the same way on all three. I think it's important that when talking about levels that you think in zones. Looking at a specific price makes it tough in my opinion. I use 15-20 point zones on the YM but that could increase to up to a 25 point zone in times of high volatility. I get my zones from several charts. I start with the daily and mark significant buying and selling tails as well as range extremes. Then I move down to a 60 minute chart and mark where the strong directional moves started. I also use a volume profile chart to get the high and low volume areas. When I'm looking to initiate a trade in a zone I determine what the possible magnitude of the trade is then calculate my R:R assuming my stop has to be about 10 points on the other side of the zone. This helps me determine where in the zone I can put my order.