firewalker

next potential support is around 10750 (with current volatility +/- 25 points)

Seems to be like you spent a lot more time preparing and papertrading than most people do. Which is great! Just a couple of other things to reconsider. Do you have a backup plan, in case: (a) you lose connection to your broker while you just entered a position but not yet placed a stop? (b) you lose connection to internet while you just entered a position but not yet placed a stop? © your PC or your platform locks up completely and you face a hard disk drive failure? (d) the exchange goes down and you see other correlated markets plunge while you are in a long position and when the exchange opens again you're guaranteed to have your stop triggered and take a major hit? (e) your first 5 trades are losers straight out of the box? (f) you accidentally forgot to close out your position on Friday night, and now you are long over the weekend while some devastating news comes out on Sunday? (not a personal example lol!) (g) your broker doubles the margins while you are in a position but don't have enough reserve to stay in that position and you're about to receive a liquidation call? (h) a combination of any of the above...? I hope your trading career will be long and prosperous

Depends what you want from it... I had a look over at ET and I read people going long ONLY because the VIX has gone up! That's ridiculous imo... However, each time IB raised their margins it coincided with an intermediate bottom. I don't believe anyone should go long right now, I think this fast trend down is only half way. But as fear & panic rises, it's only a matter of time before capitulation sets in...

Agree! I mean, have you ever seen the market move 300 points in 5 minutes? Overnight you can have these huge gaps, but intraday... doubtful...

The first test is often a successful one. I'm very curious about what's going to happen next...

How do you know it's only for a few days? This margin thing has been a reliable contrarian indicator this year

great to have you back on board postman :applaud:

Yeah you too, make sure it's one 'candle' at a time :beer:

That's because there isn't anything else to do :o I'm off, catch ya later!

Didn't mean it like that actually... Suppose you risk (on average) 50 pips per trade and you took 10 trades to make 500 pips, then you risked as much as you gained. On the other hand suppose you took 5 trades on which you risked each 20 pips, but gained 250 pips net. Personally I'd favour trading a system like the second one. But yours is best of both worlds by the looks of it... Btw, I see three red crosses on your chart, but no negative pips. Were all those breakeven trades??

How much is your total risk, meaning the stop size of all your trades together? If you compare that to the profits you gained, then I think there's a possibility that I gained more relative to what I risked. Yeah I might not win the highest net profit contest... and I'm sure that's no 1 on the wish list of most traders! After having had a second look at your chart, I must admit you really squeezed every single point out of that, didn't you? :applaud:

Hey! I didn't start there because I only considered the chart "as is", not what happened before... no cheating plz I interpreted the chart as if it were the beginning of the beginning! Setting that aside, I see I have a pretty good idea of where your trades are. Always knew you were transparent :haha: But take that long from the lowest point of your chart. Unless you had S there from before, no way you would go long right? I had no horizontal lines on the chart to determine trades, because I used nothing from back left. Still, remarkable how good my psychic powers are

Absolutely... lot's of times I saw a perfect setup go bye without me because it was premarket. But no longer! I'm going to take the damn trade (although Murphy will make sure I'll lose out on them this time...) As to answer your question "why"... because we have different styles and I feel much more comfortable after having nailed the entry and managing the trade. If I were too look for more entries, I'd need to take more trades, which means more stress, more potential for error, more potential for stops hit. So in the end => more risk, financially and emotionally... but that's me! :\

let's compare notes others are free to contribute (but probably asleep right now) Hmm, I just realized I left volume (my favourite confirmation signal) completely out of the equation :shocked:

Yes I know you ride everything that moves :o I was just trying to provide some ideas/thoughts for those who might be interested in something else. Cowpip has been trying to adopt your approach I read, but perhaps he might feel more comfortable trading something that he made himself, that way he knows it inside out. My chart is just an illustration of some other things you can incorporate in the process of determining what constitutes a reversal or just a reaction. Thanks but it's not really that much textbook stuff... I mean it's just talk about trendlines, lower lows and lower highs. Nothing more nothing less not a lot of theory! Show me yours I'll show you mine! It's easy to say in hindsight what I should have done, but I have a pretty good guess that the number of trades you take will be twice at much as mine (the net profits might be higher too...)

Here's my homework! Hourly chart... as I don't trade FX (yet?!), I think I'm very objective and neutral about everything... At 'F' we can assume price has gone into rangebound mode, it takes a while to break lower. At 'L' I think it's a 'longs only' game.

If I'm reading this right, you guys are calling each swing where there is a change of direction (but that's by definition a swing) a 'reversal'! It's just a thought but it might help distinguishing between these kind of directional moves depending on when they occur: (a) when price is trending (b) when price is rangebound Taking reversals when price is in a range is by definition not countertrend because there is no trend. Taking what could be a reversal when price is trending, might turn out to be just a pullback. If you can determine beforehand what type of trade you are planning to take, you might be in a better position to determine the potential of the trade. I'm just thinking out loud here, not directed at you in particular wasp

level from yesterday!

other half out at 1237 for +14

half out at 1233 for +10 this is more like it other half stop at 1227.50

It was a 15-min chart... but what difference does it make?

long ES 1223.

Report of today's action so far. I didn't take all those trades annotated, only the first three.

Thanks for the insight into your approach. I'd definitely not try to catch every turn or swing when the range is not big enough. But that's just me... To be honest I do like the occasional +100 Calling perfect tops & bottoms isn't going to happen I realize that, but that doesn't mean you need to cut your profits short. PS: Yeah I know you don't like bars, next time I'll pull up a line chart. Price is price, candles are only a representation as you know

The CME is organizing a free webinar next week... http://www.cmegroup.com/education/events/forms/using_market_profile_to_trade_the_mid-cap_partner.html