TinGull

And what is your daily drawdown in your trading plan?

Note the nice 2 bar reversal on the 5min. This is a classic old skool setup that is very powerful to watch for. Did I take that trade? Nope, just had come off my loss and was grabbing a drink...just water and a gulab, nothing major.

I had got short at 101 and was stopped out for -23 on my range failure trade. Followed the plan, just some odd strength appeared out of no where.

Nice work btrader!

Maybe a 3min, a 1 minute would be too quick for a promotion from a 1250vbc

I used to "promote the trade" by entering on a 5min and watching a 15min for signs of weakness. I don't do that anymore because 15min is a bit long for me, but it might be something you could look into. Maybe execute on a 1250vbc and promote to a 5min.

Why did you get scared?

I manually trail. When I get about 15 ticks in profit i move my stop to BE +1 and on days like today where it's been pretty choppy, I'll trail it close. Sometimes 7-10 ticks away from the action. On days where it's nice and trendy in either direction like it has been the past few weeks, I'll trail a little looser, 12-15 ticks away from the action.

Trade 1: +13 Trailed it pretty tight and got taken out.

If the economy keeps at the rate it's headed, I would think this volatility should be around for a nice time to come. In terms of market cycles, in a topping cycle things are normally very volatile. We've been in a topping cycle on the technical side of things for around 2 months now. Topping can be quick, but often it can be a drawn out thing when the bulls aren't willing to give up on their position. When the bear market comes along, it's typically volatile as well as fear runs on high. When you hear about people saying the housing market isn't to bottom until 2009 ish...that's when I would think volatility might start to decrease a little while the market seeks out a bottom along with that market. Until the economy goes through this stuff its going through, it'll be nice and day trader friendly. And if it's anything like the rest of the US Gub'ment, it'll take a while.

While the secondary uptrend line was broken, the primary downtrend line has not been, and was obviously supported by that doji on high volume. Thats my best guess on AAPL. I currently own about 16% of the float on Apple, so I hope it's going up. Just kidding.

Looks higher to me right now. That dip below support of 115 creating a nice bullish pattern on high volume. If there's no follow through to it next week, that'll be the deciding factor. All the dojis, though, are really just cause of all this market volatility.

Good, but one thing you should also be trying to learn is your entry and exit techniques. I haven't really seen improvement in that arena yet. Maybe something as simple as even watching for higher highs and higher lows and entering on the 1st higher low to go long would be a start. There hasn't been anything vocalized yet on your entry methodology. I'd love to help more, but haven't seen anything on your part to show that you're wanting to learn about those sorts of things.

What did you learn from today's and this weeks trading if you're "plan" is just to do trial and error to find out what works and what doesnt?

Thanks Abe. Brilliantly sticking with a plan. Makes trading so much more fun.

+35 on the day with 2 trades. 15% over my goal, so that's OK with me.

Abe, notice how when price came into R2, the bodies of the candles got teeny?? This is what I was talking about. You could've gotten short around 13180 and then exited at 100. Much better than a 20 point gain just following those simple steps I outlined yesterday. Did you do anymore testing on that theory of mine?

Make sure you check it out with days past and if it holds up, follow those 3 steps I outlined. Could be something that would work for you.

Ok Abe, Since I love designing systems I want you to check this one out. This is just the beginning, and I'm not going to take it any further, but I want you to check this and report back on what you've found. What I would do based on your chart today is watch for small range BODY candles. With the same amount of volume flowing into a smaller range body, this is showing that people are wanting to keep price where it is in order to accumulate their positions. This equates to a change in momentum coming up. The steps to take for the system I've come up with are as follows: 1: Watch for 2 small range body candles. This is VERY discretionary. I define them as being smaller than half of the body of the previous candle. If you get 2 of them in a row after an upmove, 2: Then watch for a larger body DOWN candle and 3: Enter at the CLOSE of that candle to go short. place a protective stop above the swing high of that move (or swing low if you're going long) and do NOT exit until you get a reversal signal, which would be the opposite of what I just explained. Here's a picture annotating what I see, and how it could be useful to you. Now, go back and look over days and days and weeks and weeks and see if this holds up. I've noticed it happening over the past few days on your charts, but would be interested to see if it happens often.

Abe, Something that's a little more subtle as far as watching VBC's is paying close attention to the range of the bar. After a series of wide range bodied candles and you start to see the size of the candles contract, that's usually a tell tale sign that momentum is changing hands. One of trades you took you went short after a series of red WRB candles and then as the candles were getting smaller in range, you initiated your short and got out. This is when I'd be looking to get long. It's a more subtle thing, but something to really pay attention to. In fact, this could be the start of designing a trading plan for you. In fact...I'm done for the day so I might design one based on this and see how it plays out. btw, brown...before you get on me about being done...I'm taking only select trades because I've got a TON of stuff going on in my life right now with moving back to Maine and don't want to over do things.

Brown, Entry was at 782 and stop was a couple ticks above that prior candle at 803.

Haven't been doing too much lately with my move back to Maine coming up, but here's a nice one I took this morning for 40 points.

ditto that

The high probability setup hadn't occurred yet, is my point. You were anticipating the move, and that is definitely not hi odds.

Abe, you shouldn't trade on something that is "possible" to set up. You can never see to the right of the chart. Just my opinion.