forrestang

Post #1937. I believe Thales was referring to the 'wedging' type action, where price is making marginally HHs and HLs, signaling the potential end of a trend. If price actually does break above then the move up is often powerful.

With the risk of pulling this thread off topic, for you guys having all these problems with your brokers and the spot FX..... YOU NEED TO SWITCH BROKERS!!! Period!!! The spreads you guys speak of, with these phantom fills, it's ridiculous. You wouldn't deal with it on a futures broker.... Or with a real life situation, if you were paying money for internet that was constantly down, would you continue to keep it if other options are available?

No, I think it has been cleared up now! I mis-read that chart initially.

I think that one picture you posted with the comparison between the two different entries cleared up what your are doing quite a bit, initially I was confused. I see I was way off on what I thought a fractal was though, and I still dont get it. I thoguht the fractal was basically seeing when a 'pivot' was formed. But don't worry about it, I will figure out what they are as you continue to post your charts. I see you had a 15m candle overlay on your 5 minute chart. Your entries are based soley on the 5min chart though right?

So about the Chop Zone....... The chop zone, we see that as an area where price makes an attempt to move, but stalls? For example, where price comes down to support, puts in a L-H-LH, but then fails to put in that HH for the breakout correct? At that point we are in the chop zone. Does the picture I've attached illustrate how the chop zone sets up, and a logical way to structure trades around it? Also, the "must win" term is probably the most over used term in football. Sometimes it seems like I hear it in the first 3 games of the season. But I think you would be justified in making such a claim in this case. WE are in 3rd in our division, and there are 6 teams in front of us for the wild card birth. And you guys, if you lose today you MUST win your next 6 games.,..... So hopefully we will remain buddies after tonight 4hours,25 minutes till kickoff!

Don, We've all seen fractals/3bar entries used before. I've never figured out when to take them. How are you selected your entries? Are they based on general S/R? Or like in the picture you posted, the first entry all the way on the left, are you anticipating what could be the LH and an entry based on that?

I know you reconstructed this, so just a few hindsight observations based on this. The swing point type entry, sometimes they occur in the 'chop zone' and we might want to wait to take the entry out of the initial balance set by the chop zone. Or maybe a pattern that occurs right @ the edge of the chop zone. I think the questions on the chart should make sense.

Just an observation...........

Are you referring to this sequence of discussion? The picture I marked up is above. Looking back on it, I wonder? Initially him getting taken out when he did seemed like it didn't make sense to me. But based on this, does it look like after entry price moved enough INITIALLY to want to stay in the trade? Thales brings up a good point. Some trades just fill you and immediately fall on it's face, w/o moving in the direction at all. I haven't trained my eye to recognize this obviously.

Current position. Hopefully I'll get a better trade than BE on this one? I might split this trade if it starts to stall.

What if you are already flat? I guess I am asking what your thoughts are about tonight in regards to a game plan for you trading. Not an example necessarily.....so I am just attempting to pick the brain of the only experienced trader I know of posting ACTUAL examples of what's going on in your mind as it happens.

On nights like this, what are you watching for? Are you looking for price to move down, pick a support level and begin to print signs of movement in the other direction? Or are you watching for levels to be broken, produce a pullback/flip towards that level and going with the temporary direction down?

Looks like the G/J at least has temporarily ventured outside of its temple.Possibly bounce at Support here and move back towards the midpoint of this hinge for now.... OR move down or do whatever it wants:confused: -----ADDENDUM------- The market is moving down pretty smoothly. Areas of interest for me ATM.

I am at BE now, so stress is gone. Will adjust as nat stops develop. I'm sure this thing will stop me to the tic before going up 600pips in 15 minutes. EminiNQ and I were discussing that this decline may have made it easier for a rise to occur. As sellers worked hard for such a move downward and couldn't hold. They may now be forced to capitulate as price rises.

Probably not the best time to initiate this trade. If you look at my bigger chart, I have support down at about 1.6709 or so. We put in a temporary bottom at least a few pips higher. I am playing a BO to the upside. I may be willing to try again later if I am stopped. -----EDIT(15:07est)----- For whatever reason I am still in this trade. HOpefully I'll get a break where I can get to par as I found that pb rather annoying.

Here is how mine looked. The E/U I took is at BE now, but that initial push down literally missed my PO by about 2pips(Only one target right now). The E/J looks very similiar and would have been a nice trade it seems. But the spread was 3 pips at the time, giving me a goofy entry to short the BO. Ugh.... ------------Addendum(13:25EST)-------------- Target hit

I shorted that as well. There was a good setup in E/J too, but the spread is so wide

I'm not sure I know the answer to this? Is this a trick question? But to put it simply, of the 4 pairs I watch regularly, G/J is one of the pairs I won't be taking any trades on for a while. To me the entire area looks like chop. Particularly since Friday, the range got even tighter. I'm sure there is a way to trade it, but I think we'd all be better of just waiting for it to make a decision one way or the other.

A 4 hour look at the G/J. Price has been coiling for some time. The BO should produce some nice trades.

Rewarded with a BE trade for my troubles. There was about 15 pips of profit there, before slowly creeping back to my BE stop. Yes, my trades usually do run in my direction at least initially the overwhelming majority of the time. Initial stops we usually place beyond the last swing, maybe in the case I posted this one IMO was rather large, it seems like it is reasonable to expect to sit through at least one retracement, which will sometimes be worse than your entry. Here is my logic: If buying a BO, you're entering after a HL, expecting some form of trend change at least for some time, which is part of the natural flow of an uptrend. If this swing is rather small, why not keep your initial stop resting right below it. If the swing is huge then maybe consider moving the initial stop, or pass on the trade all together. But it seems like taking yourself out of the trade before that swing low is violated, i.e. an uptrend doesn't make sense? Opinions?

Here is a better looking situation IMO. Nice because the initial Stop was never hit. Notice the target:cool:

Here is the E/U, but I don't really like the size of the stop that is required, so decided to miss this one. Two charts, a 5 and 15m showing the trade. Has anyone ever seen a trade they like, and decide to wait for another swing in which you intend to wait in order to reduce the size of your initial stop?

E/U setting up, let's see what happens. ----EDIT (11:17est)------ It put in a LL so no long yet.

Here is a picture illustrating what I was saying.

If the play was long it looks like an outright losing trade eventually. As price made that big swing low before moving up, which would have taken most of us out. Your stops don't seem logical. It seems like you're not using any type of swing point or anything, and just throwing up stops in the middle of nowhere? Am i right or is there a rhyme or reason I'm not seeing?