jonbig04

ES is nearing my 1008 level. Gosh I wish I could get a trade in. I really wish I could start researching first test trades too. I'll be looking for a DT there tomorrow. as for 6E

I disagree. I don't think an edge is hard to find. Support and resistance is an edge. There could be many more for all I know, but there is a clear cut and defined one in S/R. I don't know what to say to people that can't see the advantage of S/R. Turning that edge into constant profit is the hard part for various reasons. So there's an edge for ya. BTW, I think "consistently profitable" should be defined. A trader who makes $75 a month and has for 5 years straight? Or maybe a trader thats made $5 million a month for 2 months straight? Somewhere in between? Seems tough to define to me. Even more difficult is making a case for how long it takes to get there when we haven't even agreed on what "there" is.

So my next level on ES is 1008. It's from november 5th. I just hope we push to it tomorrow so I can get some trades in. 6E is bouncing around R still. Nothing to report.

Barring some insane action tomorrow, my first cash month has come to an end (working on a 6E chart so decided to get a jump on this) I've learned so much! On to what matters... +16.5ES for the month 33% accuracy on 10 trades I had planned on offering to post my equity curve, but everything was deleted when I uninstalled ninja yesterday. I didn't take very many trades anyway so I think an equity curve is kind of pointless. I don't think ROI is necessary or useful in evaluating my performance so I won't post that either. All in all I am happy. Not ecstatic, but happy. This month marks the 1 year anniversary of this journal and my trading adventure. I'm still a POS noob, but I feel like I can see a faint light at the end of the tunnel, if that makes sense. Despite all the planning and preparation, I really didn't know what was going to happen this month. At the least I didn't meltdown. I was short of the +20 goal though for various reasons. My stops (or the ones that got triggered) were all at 1.5ES, with one exception. During the beginning of the month i accidentally entered with a stop of 1.25. Naturally I was stopped to the tick and missed out on 6 points :doh: Haha, what a noob move. Also I need to be more aware of the intraday 10kCVB chart. I missed 2 setups that would have worked because I was too focused on the larger TF and didn't see small patterns develop. There were a few this month (some would have worked, other wouldn't have) that I missed. I was also reminded again this month (as I have been for many months now) of the potentially great trades by taking first tests. I think eventually those will make up the majority of my gains, but I don't yet have a plan worked out around them. I am planning on using the TICK to see if it helps me with some structure and atto was kind enough to code an overlay that will work great for me. Due to some technical difficulties though I haven't been able to examine it. Hopefully I'll have that fixed soon. I'm very excited to get started working on that. For now, since I'm taking only 2 different setups, I've decided to start watching for them on other instruments too (at least until I get a first test strategy worked out). I'm in the process of examining the 6E which looks like fun. Hopefully I can start identifying setups on it soon. I will continue to attempt to anticipate my trades in foresight (the night before) as I think that helps me remember what it is I'm looking for. I will post some charts later on. I appreciate all the help and advice everyone has been offering. Some of you have gone out of your way to help me and I want to make it clear that it is very appreciated :beer: Also, the one absolute advantage NQ has over ES is that +41.25 NQ points sounds so much cooler than +16.5 ES points:(

So I tore the world apart trying to get TICK data today to analyze potentially for first test trades. I wasn't able to. Gosh I really wanted to try that too. Anyways for now I'm going to stick to what I'm doing, but since I'm only play specific setups and haven't yet been able to work out a first test strategy I may as well start to follow some other instruments and see if I can find some more of those failure/confirmation BO trades on large timeframes. I was thinking maybe CL or QM, a bond future...and something else thats not at all correlated. Maybe a currency. Just until I get my first test strategy worked out. It may just be the noob in me, but this just looks like chop city up here. I have no major levels and I don't see anything either.

I can't find any levels around here, save 1004ish. Lame! I guess I just have to wait until some form. Almost the end of the month.

The internet here was snarled into some mess and I didn't get to trade today. By the looks of things, I didn't miss much. Anyways I'm working with the TICK data now. I'm such a computer idiot.

Awesome, best of luck!

Whew 30+ hour drive is over. I am beyond tired. Anyways the market is rallying still and so far I have no levels here. I will look for some tomorrow on some larger time frames. As for scaling, the only thing I have against it is that I think its misused. I think many people don't scale for PA based reasons, but psychological ones. Other than that I'm sure many people have great success with it. But for me, right now with 1 car, I will let it run. Also, 12.5ES is nothing compared to what a BO at 955 means for ES IMO. I have a lot to do, but I will be working with TICK data a lot this week and will decide if I want to pay the $60 a month for it. If it can help with my first test trades it will be well, well worth it. To me, first test trades are where the real profit is. If I can make this work I think I can blow this thing open. Hopefully the TICK will give me some more information when attempting those trades. It will take a lot of backtesting and forward testing to know for sure.

haha yea everyone hates all in/all out. The biggest point I have to make is t hat for better or worse, today all in/out was my plan. To change it on the fly would have been a lack of discipline. Even if God himself is telling me the sucker is gonna drop, 12ES is a drop in the bucket when compared to maintaining consistent discipline. About the actual strategy, I really wasn't sweating it that much. It was a little weird because I had no R levels up here, but that also means that...well there are no R levels up here haha. And as I mentioned, the resistance we broke out of wasn't run of the mill R. It was major R on the DAILY charts. 12.5ES is really not much compared to what this sucker may do in the coming days ahead. Lastly, my biggest reason for all in/out is because its simple. Is it psychologically difficult? Sure. But its the most profitable. Why? Because I'm a noob. I can barely manage to get one entry and exit right, let alone multiple exits or entries. When I am experienced and can make better decisions about entering and exiting, then I'm sure I will scale a few off here and there. Ideally though I would like to scale off 3/4th and leave the rest on over night at BE. That would be fun. One day. Atto has been kind enough to code a strategy that ets me overlay TICK data onto my 5 sec chart. I will be playing with this a lot to see if I can get it to help with my currently non-existent first test trading. I'm driving cross country and will miss tomorrows trading.

Hope its ok if just put my journals chart up here. I'm running short on time today as I'm moving tomorrow.

I know its early, but I have to move tomorrow and have a lot to do today. I have no more trades anyway so I thought I would get this done. +12.5 yay!

Yea exactly. I'm strapped for time for the next few days, but I will post my findings on here.

Sure. I'll chart them up tomorrow. The difficult part is whether TD happens at ALL major levels or not.

Thanks Neo, I do feel that way. the truth is that these BO confirmations and failures can be sweet, but they just don't happen that often. Which sucks. As I have mentioned many times before, I am looking for a way to find some local confluence at major S/R levels. First test trading. For example, I have 955 as R from the beginning of June. When price touches it again, I short. First test. I've tried all kinds of stuff: volume, 5 sec trend lines, stop-limit orders. SOMETHING to give me a clue that "hey, this major area might hold". Too often my levels show perfect rejection (meaning price bends by less that 1.5 ES, which is my stop, and falls the other way by at least 10ES). Look at yesterday. How much would I have netted if I had sold and bought my predetermined levels of 940 and 955? The same could be said for 7/21, 7/16, 7/9 and 7/8. I can't ignore these potentially great trades. But I don't want to just enter with a limit at a level with no other confluence either. For better or worse I want something there locally as well. I signed up for the 7 day free trial for IQ feed. For that I get TICK data. I've been following along with DB and finally followed through with pursuing what TICK divergence combined with major S/R could bring. I don't think TICK is some magic fix, but it could provide the extra little confluence I need to keep from buying falling knives, but still make a few great trades too. I've only been at it for a few hours, but so far all the dates I mentioned earlier showed major TD (TICK divergence) at the time of would be entry. What I have to do now is quantify TD somewhat specifically, THEN see if it happens at every major level, or only the ones that are going to send price sailing the opposite direction. Until I get this or something else worked out for my first test trades I will stick to exclusively playing the patterns. The patterns have helped a lot and give me further confluence on which direction price may be headed. If I can pull those patterns together along with first test trades. Well, lets just say I will be very happy.

Update. Well, out pattern didn't confirm, or fail. The top was tested and it bent a bit (faking me and some others out), but all in all there was more rejection at the 955 area. I will update the pattern again tomorrow morning. It looks like its trying to form a triple top as we are now at 949 after having been rejected at 956. I will wait for globex to play out before posting anything else on it.

Thought it would be cool to get faked and buy some Resistance today lol. Noobed. Anyways obviously the BO didn't happen and we're back in that old range. I'm still looking for the same trades: a BO to the upside or one to the downside (below 940).

I wanted to get this up in the AM before this pattern confirmed or failed.

Sorry, I think I need to elaborate. I can pick the S/R (thats the easy part), but I need a better way to capitalize off of them. Tomorrow I'll be looking to short the M top confirmation breakout (below 940), or buy the M top failure above 955.

we are nearing such an important area! We may already be there, but I wonder how much inertia this rally has and if the buyers can take this area and flip it. Or maybe we reject and fall back into the 884 area again. Who knows! But it so exciting! I just hope I can manage to get on the right side of a move lol.