TheNegotiator

Open-Drive so far straight to test that first area I noted.. and breaking! Note: this is why it's quite important to watch how we open. When you get and OD/OTD open, fading even a good level only a few points away from the open is never likely to go well!

Happy Friday everyone! I'm not going to be trading today but will be posting a bit. Just wanted to give you guys a quick look at the charts. I think if we move to test higher, 36.00/36.75 and then 40.25/42.00 will be important. Lower and of course we still have that 20.75 and yesterday's 19.75 low. There are singles supporting down to 18.75 from 6/28 which may be supportive but I wouldn't count on that. Michigan could be important as well at 9:55am.

Some traders, possibly the ones who need to address what I’m saying the most, will flat ignore this. People often seem to be much more interested in exciting new systems and charting techniques than in addressing the critical aspect of themselves and their ability to apply said techniques. Any system in the wrong hands will always fail. It’s my argument that if you are a discretionary trader, it’s the trader that makes or loses money. Not the market. Not the system. THE TRADER. Realistically of course, market behaviour and chosen strategy have bearing on performance but unless you take every ‘signal’ or have programmed the strategy, it is the trader who selects what and when to trade. I sort of view it like sports. Take your favourite football team. You might watch a game and see some really exciting things happen. But to get to the position where a player or team can do that takes a great deal of unexciting training. I can virtually guarantee that if you put someone into the team who hadn’t done that level of training, the results wouldn’t be good at all and probably would be quite embarrassing. Like sports, trading might seem glamorous to some yet it requires a great deal of effort to get to a desirable end result. If you’re a new trader still searching for a strategy that will work, don’t think this doesn’t apply to you. It especially applies to you and will help you avoid a wild goose chase in pursuit of that perfect system. By building a foundation of yourself, you will ultimately enjoy consistent (although not guaranteed good ) results and be in a position to improve on them day by day. These are the basics for performance which imho you should address:- Motivation If you aren’t thoroughly motivated, it’s almost not worth the bother. It’ll waste your time and almost certainly your money. Making sure you put the work in come rain or shine is a must irrespective of whether or not you have a boss breathing down your neck. Half-arsed effort in trading is not like slacking off in other jobs. It will cost you financially and emotionally. Emotional Balance Trading when you’re tired, upset, unsettled, angry or whatever else is just nuts. In my own experience, it’s a sure-fire way to line the pockets of guys who are focused and mentally fit to trade. It’s not always easy to hold back from trading when you’re in an emotional state. But it’s important you do. It’s also important you try to balance yourself and your life to limit the frequency and impact of emotional triggers. Regular physical exercise and meditation are things I find useful personally. Preparation Failure to prepare in trading is imho the route of all evil. It is where the chaos starts. It’s where emotional self-deprecation begins and it often puts you in the hole before you really ‘begin’ to trade. Yet it’s just not hard. If you’re too lazy to prepare you shouldn’t trade and quite frankly you don’t deserve to make money. Actually, if you do trade and make money when you haven’t prepared, it could be damaging in the long run. Lucky outcomes to poor trading practise can be a real set back to trader development. If you haven’t got the time to prepare for some reason, you must have the discipline to not trade. Plain and simple. Focus and Attention To execute any plan it is of critical importance to remain focused at all times when you are trading. The very worst trades often happen when you just sit down or glance back at your screen after doing something else, you see something you were interested in and take a trade without even thinking. There’s something to be said about trading without ‘thinking’, but in this case it’s not a positive thing to do. You’re not thinking, but also here you haven’t been watching the market as it develops. This is just one example of why focus is important. It’s also important to focus in the ‘right’ way. Becoming so focused that you are blinkered to the broader reality of a situation is for example, a dangerous thing. When you’re ‘on it’ so to speak, trading almost seems too easy at times. Review You must review your strategy and your trading. Whether you do back-testing or journaling or you simply do a mental replay of your trades for the day, doing so will allow you to assess your and your system’s efficacy and build upon it. Without doing any reviews, your development as a trader might be no better than trying to play darts drunk, blindfolded and with your weak hand! Seriously. I’m not writing this as if it’s ‘gospel’ and truly believe that even the best of traders can always learn something from themselves, the markets and other traders willing to share. So I encourage anyone who has fundamental underlying principles for trading which they have found effective for them, to post them here.

I forgot to say about the possibility of a long term vpoc shift to the now back-adjusted level of 1298.25. Certainly still on the cards if we get much lower.

Both. They're all annoying and I feel sorry for the people who still manage to be sucked in! But hey. Yeah I haven't been party to any of these recently either due to my newly installed reactive biometric neural feedback spam filter. There was this great webinar on the new technology and it only cost $9999.99! No, wait a minute...:doh: :rofl:

Yes, it always boils down to easy money doesn't it! Anyway, a few thoughts currently. Major Consolidation (MC) 1 from 2011 was broken out of at the turn of the year and a fairly tight uptrend began and moved higher until we formed a significant lower Minor Balance (MB) in the what was to become MC2. A significant lower high was put in and we trended down. Pretty much the RTH 2012 open at 1261.25 marked the low 1258.75. What I've drawn in as MC3 so far has been less than convincing directionally with MBs higher then lower then higher etc.. This is why I have it currently as MC3 rather than simply an uptrend - although clearly there is some sort of trend at the moment from that test of the 2012 open. It did also try to develop back within MC2 as evidenced by the upper 'small' development. A break back below the low volume area ~1340 to me is a potential sign that we're not accepting of old balance. We didn't test the MC2 vpoc and should we retest the current MC3 vpoc and show any acceptance (i.e. not a quick rejection and strong move up, rather some trading and subsequent development of the profile), that would indicate current 'value' is better than previous 'value'. The chances are we might then explore lower. Should this happen, we can test and remain in consolidation or we can sell off further and test old value- namely MC1 vpoc 1230.50. Again, we could go higher and end up testing MC2 vpoc at 1386.00. Hope that makes some sense!

ES is coming up against that down trendline now...

We are at least currently showing some signs of wanting to push higher by taking the mid/overnight low out.

Really just continuing the overnight trend down so far today:-

I would argue that markets which 'pretend' they're gonna go in your favour and then slam through you are somewhat worse. :frustrated: The other thing that is really quite annoying which just sprang to mind is a trend that seems to be gripping the trader interweb right now. It's interesting sounding webinars which turn out to be dumbass product commercials. Such crap :doh:

The reaction so far at th 20.75 is not as hoped. The absolute exit point if it wants to test below would probably be a breach of ~19.25. That's not to say we're not building a base to reverse from. Trade what you see.

Could always be a bear flag too - although a failed flag can be explosive in the opposite direction and there's still 20.75 as support.

VWAP is also ~24.00 which is a source of resistance too.

If there is any kind of reversal here, I'd suspect we'd test ~30.25 at least. No certainties of course...

That looks like it could've been the 20.75 test although won't know until see the extent of rotation up. If it's to move higher, I'd like to see a fairly quick break of 24.00 (overnight low) and 24.75 (midpoint).

Dropped below yesterday's RTH overnight so far and it looks like we'll be testing the low on open unless a drastic move happens within the next few mins. Tomorrow is possibly going to move things. Some decent eco releases, there are bank earnings and overnight is CNY GDP. So, what do I reckon? I think given attempted rally into close and failure overnight, we could have more downside. Could it be monumental? Hmm. Maybe, but with stuff tomorrow and very achievable targets as shown in my chart, I'd suspect that we might hold one of these prices- unless of course there's new data to price.

Haha! Fair enough. There are different tactics for every condition though. You could scalp some CL or DAX when things are slow maybe!

What's too slowly ?

With the dollar quite directional at the minute, I think there is a chance of testing lower if we spend a decent amount of time below 36.50/37.00. If not right now, then perhaps after the minutes release. 23.25(gap)/23.50(high vol) and 20.75(low vol) major targets. That being said, if the FED severly disappoint the markets, forget those and look towards the 07.50/08.50 area maybe.

Market responding to its RTH session midpoint and that 36.50/37.00 area AGAIN!!

Yeah that was the plan and it worked well. I actually was long from 34.50 too so that was nice! Always a positive to go into an announcement with some "house money" but important not be gung-ho because of it.

Considering how ES was moving and the fact that yesterday was a big down day and that FOMC minutes are due for release, expectation was for a possible early move but ultimately some kind of range activity until later in the session. With this context, I've done a chart to explain early action as I was seeing it. It's always difficult to fully demonstrate market activity on a historical chart, but hopefully it helps to make things a little clearer

If chop is what you like, ES is not disappointing so far!!

Well, it would be my preference if it's selling towards support or buying into resistance, to not take a trade until 1- I'd seen that the reaction at the level was not strong and 2- there was a decent enough pullback to get me into a trade. You could of course wait for it to penetrate the level and hope for a quick retest to give you an entry. But anyway, not that I'm say it's the wrong thing to do but if you are trying to trend trade might not one of the other indices be better to look at over ES?

So did you trade it here and what was your play? 2SD to -2SD?