cowpip

Short GJ @ 202.28

Just a quicky - closed for +25. Time to wait and see what sets up now.

Good call, Don4. I'm out for -25. Long @ 201.90

I've closed for -10 and gone long again at 202.49 with a very tight stop this time - It's having problems dropping below prior support and is now looking like it may (maybe?) roll back over. Granted, this is counter to Wasp's strat, so I'm liable to get taken out. But the hourly looks ripe to run higher now. So I've gone with my gut this time.

Yep, I had a feeling this was the wrong direction, having been rejected at the previous resistance line. Silly me. Stopped out for -52. Short @ 202.44

Sorry to hear that, Don4. That sucks. This is a quircky session to be sure. Support around 86 is still in play on my books - but it's definitely testing the resolve of that level. EDIT: Actually, it's 202.85 on my charts.

This may be the wrong direction (it's not possible to tell given that last 4-hour candle), but let's wing'r.... Slightly better position... Long GJ @ 202.96

Out at b/e. Missed my reversal due to family functions. This is a Whacky Monday anyway. I'll wait for a better entry.

Long GJ @ 203.10

Thanks Firewalker... yeah, I had looked at the other pairs and actually switched to trading other pairs, which was a good choice compared to how GJ has been behaving lately. But I switched back to GJ on Thursday and did very well by the end of Friday (+262 pips on GJ with Wasp's strat from Thursday night until Friday's close). Sorry I never posted any live trades of it. I haven't been doing terribly well with Wasps strat (but not terribly bad either - pretty much b/e since I started using it a week or two ago). Learning a new method is always a bit costly at first, and I'm more than willing to accept those losses during the learning process. But given how things have started to come together now, I believe the next few weeks will be much better with his strat. It's a very cool and simple strat and I'm a firm believer in simplicity. I plan on resuming Wasp's strat on Sunday/Monday and will try to post live trades of my success / failures during the week. Someone has to keep this thread alive, right? It's worth keeping alive. If I've benefited from it and I've been full-time trading for several years now, I can't imagine why it wouldn't be of benefit to others (regardless of their experience) - particularly if it causes them to ask questions or to consider a new way of looking at things. If you aren't willing to look at new strats and play with them (even at at loss), then I believe you're too rigid and likely won't survive the market when changes are required. The more tools you can add to your belt, the more quickly you will be able to adapt and survive when the market changes. I continue to applaud Wasp for sharing. If I can play some small part in that (even if only to demonstrate that sure - initially, success isn't guaranteed when trying something new), then so be it.

How about that thar sideways action, folks! Holy man... what a colossal waste of time!

Closed undisclosed short trade. Long GJ @ 204.51

So we're in a consolidation mode following last weeks massive ride on GJ. Daily ranges are once again contracting to less than half of what they were last week (sigh!). Currently short on GJ, but since I didn't offer a live call, I won't mention the entry location. I'll post a few of my live trades this week, but likely not during my night hours. Takes too much effort to do while in bed. I'll summarize the next morning. Anyone else up for posting live trades???

What a slow day! I hate days like this, where the range contracts to half of normal. This is hardly worth my time!

Pretty whippy action today. Price doesn't know whether to continue lower or begin a retrace. After failing to make it through and hold resistance around 206.26, I have chosen to take profit on its second attempt higher. It's a Friday, and a jittery one at that. So I closed for +120. A nice way to end the week. Overall, not a great week, but today helped make up a bit for it. Have a good weekend everyone!

Cool. Hey, and if you can justify purchasing 3 more monitors, GREAT! The more of those, the merrier. But then, I'm a computer junky. "Quite the week" is certainly a polite way to describe it. Yes, you have a good one too!

My data doesn't go nearly that far back. I would imagine it should suffice to go back just a few years, let alone 20 years? BTW, I'm STILL long on GJ... only a couple of close calls. I allowed my stop to be taken at b/e overnight so I could try to get a slightly better entry at 204.74. So currently, that's where I'm long from.

True, but I wasn't waking up every hour. I was only waking up when price reached levels that required my attention. I woke up maybe 3 times during the night, which isn't bad - but it isn't as nice as with the 4-hour strat, which requires a wake-up for a couple of minutes once while I'm asleep. That, I can handle.

I know you better than that, Jack! You love your kids! That's why you have them in forced employment. Truth be told, it's their pay-checks that are feeding your funding! :o

You know what Wasp... disregard my last questions... I'm a smart guy and know the answer pretty well already. It's dominantly a discretionary thing anyway and I would be surprised if what you described fit with what I related to. So don't bother responding to it. That's something I'll handle on my own.

PS: Wasp -- I'm referring only to those times when you close a trade that is perhaps half-way (or less) from completing the 4-hour bar.

JT1, how many longer-term players out there do you think saw that 1995 line and used it? Was it a S/R line on the weekly charts? Monthly charts? There are other reasons why it may or may not serve as S/R. It doesn't always have to be a 4-hour chart S/R line that is resisting or supporting. It could be that the 4-hour line also coincides with a longer-term S/R line on a larger time-frame. Just a thought...

Wasp, do you have any methods (aside from just walking away from the screen) for knowing (or feeling) when it's wise to cut a 4-hour trade and close out before the end of the 4-hour period is up? Failures to run higher on the 30-min don't necessarily work, because I've seen you take 4-hour trades where price reverses almost all the way back to your entry before running right back up. Is it just a judgement call you make (based on experience), or is there something you're seeing that causes you to say, "this is done... time to cut and run"?

How did you do with your short-term strat, Wasp (not looking for pippage)? I started out well, but ended up in an overall loss. I don't handle waking up several times a night very well, but if I just would have reversed, I would have done just fine. Anyway, price on the hourly and subhourly would attack the S/R lines, fall back and then bust through on the next hourly bar (exactly opposite to what I was planning). Ah well. I've switched back to the 4-hour strat for now. Currently long @ 204.87, but uncomfortable with it given the hammer/pin-bar formation that has formed, suggesting a reversal lower. The last 4-hour bar also closed right on my S/R line (to the pip). Can't split lines, so I looked back in time at how these situations worked out, and found a sufficient number of inverted-hammers patterns closing close to support and then going off in the opposite direction to what the candle hinted, to cause me to go long here.

Grrr... had to take kids swimming... moved stop to b/e and was stopped out when I got home on a stop hunt. Figures...