jonbig04

I've had this idea bouncing around my head for a while now. That is, looking for the same set up on different instruments. It seems possible, but only if you actually are familiar with the other instruments. Just plugging your strategy into another instrument with different volatility etc seems a recipe for failure. With that in mind I would like to start becoming familiar with other instruments. I trade ES, day and night. I'm looking for suggestions on which instruments may be similar in terms of volatility (seems like the biggest variable in moving from one instrument to the next, but I could be wrong). I would like to stick to an actual future, but if there's nothing great out there I will look into FX pairs. What am I talking about, any and all suggestions are welcome! Good trading fellas.

haha too bad I didn't get long at 26! Oh well.

No trades in the past few days. Some levels got chopped up and I'm waiting to see what ones form around here. We had a mini DB today. I don't trust the level enough to try longs there, but I will short if the DB fails with momentum, only because I can easily get out if the selling slows down. Other than that, just watching and waiting,

Thanks BF, and I know what you mean. that 57 level got chopped by opening volatility and now seems to be useless. I still feel alright about the trades though, at least for now. 57 had been S that previous day and it bounced enough for me to buy it. When that trade was stopped I assumed a bigger break down was in store. I shorted hoping to ride some momentum, but was able to get out quickly when none really showed up. The lack of momentum lead me to believe price wanted to retest 57 from underneath, hence the other short. I was surprised when that didn't work. The market opened a few minutes later and chopped up the level. I don't know if it was because of the open or not. Anyways, for better or worse that was my train of thought. Sucks staying up all night and having nothing to show for it!

Can't seem to catch this break down. Every time I short I get shaken out some how some way.

Took a stop and a B/E. Darn whiplashing market.

The lines are all greek to me. I just watch for volume expanding while price is moving rapidly. I like to keep it simple.

Welcome aboard! There are a lot of us young guys on here. You've definitely come to the best place to learn. I'm sure you are wading through the ocean of information available to you. I wouldn't be too concerned about the zero sum thing. Sure technically we are trying to take each other's money, but there is more than enough to go around I will give you one bit of advice: Spend some time getting to know what trading is all about. Then sit down and ask yourself if you are really ready to commit the time and effort required to make it. I know that seems obvious, but if you enter the world of trading knowing its going to be a struggle, you won't be thrown for a loop when in fact it is, well, a struggle. Trading has taught be a lot, much of which has nothing to do with markets. It's taught me to persevere and to get my ass handed to me only to be thankful of the lesson I learned. I went into trading expecting to be an expert in a few months, because honestly thats how long it took me to become proficient at anything else. Of course I joined the ranks of the many that have been humbled by the market. So take some time out, decide if you really want to dedicate your life to this because I firmly believe that s what is required. If you choose to then I wish you the best of luck! There are many here who are more than willing to answer questions.

Hey guys, I hope its ok if I join in. I trade breakouts on ES as well. I'm looking for pretty particular circumstance so I don't do it very often, but I find when the setup does occur the resulting trade can be a great ride. Many times I have thought about taking these breakout setups only and using different instruments as they don't happen very often (or I don't see them very often). But I decided against that route and take many other setups all on ES. I choose to use patterns to quantify the price action around the potential breakout. It's either the confirmation or the failure of a pattern. I'm sure you could just call it a range breakout, sometimes a major trend line breakout, or a thousand other things. I don't think the name is important, but the PA behind it. Patterns just work well for my brain I guess. As was mentioned earlier, I think volume is key. To me, this is a momentum trade. There should be little doubt when it is happening. Volume should be expanding and the weaker side getting pummeled and price moving quickly. The tricky part is that there is always a volume expansion at major support and resistance so it's really best to wait for some failure. Otherwise you will do what I did the other day and short the low of day or buy the high of day haha. Not that it matters very much. In my experience the R/R with these breakout trades is 1:7 or better. You can afford to be wrong about it here and there. I typically enter at market. There is a very real chance that any other entry would leave you without fill and missing the move. Your stop will likely be in a crappy spot, but this is a momentum trade and that shouldn't matter that much. Here are a few example of what I do that I pulled from my journal. I explain more of what I'm doing in that thread, but I think for now it's pretty self explanatory. Here's a breakout from the middle of July. Notice the double top at 884 and what happens when it fails. Same story here, double top failure break out. A week after this breakout, ES was sitting at 1,000. I put this one up because it shows what I call a confirmation break out. Price broke out when the double top confirmed. There was a spike that confirmed the double top before hand, but if I remember correctly I dismissed it as just a stop run and ignored it (the fact that these are all double tops is coincidence). As you can see, I actually went long at support and reversed to catch the breakout. So there's a few example of how I play breakouts, I hope to get better with time. I thought I would post a chart of ES today as I may have break out play coming up! In fact I sold the low of day trying to catch a break out a few days ago. Price closed near support, I'll be on the lookout it tries to break down below it (or above the R).

Market bitch slapped me today. I took 2 stops. Oh yea, this is why my average R/R is 1:7 lol. Anyway the first trade looks stupid, I basically shorted the LOD :doh:. When you're trying to play a break out below S, thats always a possibility. Sure makes you feel like an ass though haha. Basically the market found S again at same spot in found it yesterday (in that big spike), right around 1072.50. But price stalled after headed back down. Some volume came in and buyers started to lay down, I shorted and they came back with a vengeance and owned me. Bastards. I then shorted the previous R around 1080 and actually got a good entry, but buyers wanted it back up into the range so I got owned again. I probably should have waited for a little more confirmation on the BO play, but its a risk I was willing to take. The other short I am ok with too, just didn't pan out. Stupid day to short haha. We're almost back up to the top of the range. Hopefully this end will be a little more cooperative. I'll me looking for shorts up here and keeping an eye out for a potential BO if price takes 98.5.

A wild day. The market yet again found R at the upper end of the range and made a perfect double top at 98.5, forget the assymetric first peak. Technically the DT confirmed, but did it really? Check the zoomed in view of the action at S. A massive vol spike, and price takes the S at 77.5. But as you can see, the buyers came in and pushed back to S within 4 or 5 minutes. Not what I call I break out. To me, it looks like a stop run. Everyone and their grandmother had their stops below 77, and they all got owned. So what to do? There doesn't appear to be any real acceptance below 77.5 besides the spike, leading one to think that maybe S is at 77.5 still. Then again, price has stalled at 77 (price doesn't move right now anyway though) maybe the sellers will try to flip it to R? Who knows. I'm going to wait. If price drops and makes a lower low, that will suck becasuse I won't catch any of it, but at least we got to see the DT pan out. If price rallies back up into the range I will just pretend like this spike doesn't exist, keep my S at 77.5 and wait for price to break below it again, hopefully with real conviction this time (though I will be more cautious shorting below 77.5, really would have to see buyers laying down). The good news is that our double top is gorgeous and there could be a nice BO to the upside if price breaks 98.5.

Just some more foresight analysis. Marking my trades and explaining my reasoning for them in foresight really helps me keep everything in perspective. Not that arbitrary time frames like days, weeks, or months matter, but I'm hoping to really smash my goal this month. I'm at or near +20ES so far, so one more good trade will really send me over the top. Its exciting not because its a good month (month being a random time frame really), but because I'm making trades this month that I wouldn't have made last month. That is exciting for me.

Thought I would go over the entry since that's what I'm working on. There is some interesting action on the larger TF that I will go over later.

Great chart by Forrest. I love that BO setup, but they don't happen very often. I would call it a double top failure BO, but what's in a name anyway. In my experience those setups can be so explosive, they sometimes merit entering at market.

I wonder they they call it "black monday"? Shouldn't it be "red monday"? Anyway, when that happened I was 3 months old.

Good stuff. I'm sure you know by now there is a lot of great info here and a lot of great people willing to help. Best of luck.

Funny, I was just messing with this the other day. i have a few mario bros wave files. I was thinking of putting the "game over" sound in place of the "stop filled" etc I'm not really sure how to do it though. If anyone does this let me know! I would love to know how.

oops, I cut off the end of that last sentence: "...the major pattern breakouts I still enter at market"