Maelstrom

No trades thus far today - the entry yesterday afternoon was the one, and could have/should have been a swing trade up till now. Hesitation earlier in the day, and a confirmed turn down would have had me looking for shorts, but it obviously didn't materialize. Since I don't hold YM trades day to day, and don't (usually) take continuation trades from the previous day, I am on the sidelines. Two hours to go, never know what may happen. Going into a holiday weekend, this could slow up here. M

Ok, this is embarrassing, as I consider myself a pretty techie guy, but is there a way to embed images from a file into the body of a post versus it being an attachment? Thanks!

Ok, at the core of my trading is what I call market intention. I guess it is similar to momentum, but it is more focused on directional movement/range versus the actual speed of the move. What I am looking for is 3 or more consecutive bars closing in the direction of a move. For an upmove, as an example, I need 3 closed green bars. For a downward intention, 3 or more red bars. This is very similar to a candlestick formation known as "Three White Soldiers". More information on this formation is available at http://www.candlesticker.com/Cs63.asp Attached is a chart of YM illustrating these....more to come. M

Just thought I would show the clean look of another market with range bars. Trades are indicated with arrows, diamonds exit points. As a disclaimer, I DO NOT currently trade the ES, but I am considering using it as the instrument to focus on for this thread, since I have YM shown on my other thread.

I thought it would be worthwhile to go over the type of charts I use for trading. All types of options out there for charting - time-based, tick, range, renko, P&F, etc. - pick your flavor. But for me, the most useful type of chart I have used has been range bars. For me, price is what matters. Time really has very little impact on my trading, other than the obvious market close if I am day trading, and there are of course well known "reversal times" during the day (30 mins after open, lunchtime, etc). With a range bar, if price is hesitating and chopping, the current bar simply stays just that - as the current bar. With time charts, a new bar will print regardless of the price action. Now, there is a tremendous amount of usefulness in seeing that chop in time-based bars for many traders and methods - it simply does not fit into what I see or do. Where I think a time-based chart is useful in is showing momentum.... small range bars/chop, then a jump and long bars moving in a particular direction. Now that I am writing this, I guess the best way to describe what I look for is the market's directional "intention" versus the speed of the move in that direction. I will expand on this later. YM 20 range chart and a 30 min chart attached to compare.

Hello all, My purpose with this thread is to detail my trading strategy and methods, and hopefully, help anyone who may be struggling to find a suitable and most importantly, profitable, way to trade. I am mainly a daytrader, but a long-term daytrader, if that makes any sense. I take 1, maybe 2 trades a day, and look for gains of 60-100+ per trade on the YM. I have been posting my trades on my other thread "YM Daytrading", and try to post the entries and exits beforehand or as close to realtime as possible, and will continue to do so there. I trade using support and resistance, simple candle/chart patterns, and no indicators. I will glance at volume from time to time, but I honestly have never seen anything useful enough in it to make it something I routinely watch. I know lots of traders use it with great success (don't flame me), and have all the respect in the world for those that use it well. My frustration for many years was in determining WHAT is significant in price action. Why does support hold here, but it doesn't there? Why will price breakout now, but not an hour ago? Sound familiar? I have gone through 100s of indicators, training seminars, advisory services, and blown out numerous accounts. I have micro-traded, trying to catch every nip and tuck of the market, traded stocks, options, forex, futures, etc, spent 1000's of hours looking at charts, felt the elation of coming up with "THE SYSTEM", and felt the dark feeling of it failing and going back to square one. For this thread, I would like to go into the details of my method, including in no particular order: 1. Using a sensible "timeframe" to see significant levels 2. How to confirm valid swings vs. noise 3. Validating support and resistance levels and how they can be used 4. Determining sensible (and profitable) entries, and most importantly exits I would love for this to be a great discussion and discovery thread for all who contribute. I will try to be as clear and definitive in what I do as I can, and encourage everyone to jump in and offer ideas, suggestions, or new ways of looking at things. I am always learning, and that will never change. Lastly, because I have read many boards and seen many things, I will state a few things now: I am not selling anything, not now or ever. The way I trade will be layed out, it is not rocket science, and there are no hidden indicators, EA's, or offers of "THE SECRET" for a bargain price of $97.99. I am the first one to say, often times, I am as wrong as anyone can be. No market gurus here. The reason I am starting this thread is because I well know the feeling of despair, stupidity, worthlessness, <insert your word here> that trading can cause. I told myself a long time ago, if I could reach some level of success in this, I would pay it forward someday. M

Mr. Market (or Mrs. may be more appropriate) for proving me wrong once again :rofl:

Sat on the sidelines overnight...slow grind up, but didn't see anything worth moving on. For now, watching a few interesting areas. If current price action fails to reach the 12275 area, and breaks down through the 12208-10 area, I will be anticipating a visit back to 12150. If that breaks convincingly, we may see 11940-50 relatively quickly. Again, no predictions, just what I am seeing at the moment. Likely the market will shoot straight up from here for 200 points Started an experiment last night, looking at ES. I have traded it before, along with NQ, TF, etc, but have never liked it much due to the heavy interest in it and sometimes erratic movements caused by program trading and institutions. But, just wanted to see if my "methods" would apply. Hindsight is 20/20 of course, and it doesn't mean a damn thing, but last week would have been good for about 58 ES points. If the market continues to waffle around all day, may look at other markets just to keep awake. M

Pony, I agree with you. I remember reading something along the lines of those who have money are most interested in keeping it versus making more. Smaller accounts definitely need to be more aggressive and make higher returns to make a suitable sum and living expenses, whereas someone with $500k, $1M, etc, is perfectly happy (or should be) with a 20-30% return annually. And why shouldn't they, that is $200-300k, with no doubt a lot less risk and stress than the guy trying to double his account every couple of weeks. Believe me, I would absolutely love to be the guy with multi-millions in the bank or account, getting a measly return and still living the good life..... someday, my friend, some day :cheers:

Upcoming, looking for a bar close below 12160, unless there is just a tremendous amount of churning here after hours before reaching that level. Major support areas I will be watching are 12150, 12107, and the 12050-60 area. After that, I don't see much to stop a downward move until the 11850 area. Of course, this is all assuming a turn down from here. The market can very well just keep pushing up, but that is why I trade what I see and don't try to predict.

Out 12218, +38 for the day. Wish I had seen the short earlier, but I will take it for a lackluster day.

Have a possible long setup shaping up. Will enter on the close of a green bar. Not feeling real great about this one with the time of day and being right at the HOD. Red arrow was a short earlier, and I missed it. Oh well, better that than rushing a trade I don't see. ** Update ** Long entry at 12180, SL 12158

Cancelling short setup for the moment - congestion before news, and I need a clearer direction before entering anything. Patience!

Possible reversal setting up to the short side

I will take a crack at this, but preface it with my belief that "profitability" is subjective and means something different to everyone. I am have never seen the point of traders who say that you need $50,000 per emini contract in your account, and then scalp a couple of points here and there to make $50-$100 a day per contract. Are they profitable? Of course. Is it worth it? To me, absolutely not. Consistency and expectancy is key in my opinion. What is your R:R, you average win %, etc. With that knowledge, you can size an account appropriately, manage risk, and still get a respectable return. As an example, I trade one contract (emini) per $2500 in my account, and have a goal of doubling my account every two weeks. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but it averages out to that over time. I guess if you have $10M in an account, a 5-10% annual return is pretty good - but for one of the "little" guys like me, I look for a 100-400% monthly return - otherwise, I would simply go work somewhere and make a paycheck. M

Target hit, +101 for the trade Total for the week +209 Let's see what the market wants to do at the 12140 area.

Man of few words Would I be correct that you are pointing out the dropping volume on the last few up bars?

Love it! Went to the target to the tick, then reversed without taking me out! LOL :haha: That's the way it goes sometimes - waiting to see what it does now Btw, target was chosen as it is a bit below the highs from the 21st and 22nd, and right in the middle of that consolidation mess that occurred there before it turned down.

Target exit 12126 - lets see if it gets there.

Could be a bullish flag setting up here - strong support would be around the 12055 area for termination of that pattern if it happens, which was resistance (briefly) earlier. Will wait and see.....still in long trade.

Hardest thing I had to learn

Possible strong resistance area - watching how it reacts here.

Chart for long entry....

Long 12025, stop loss 12004

Short trade never materialized. Well, it did, but I had two a second short setup materialize before the first triggered, and that typically means weakness, so no trade. Looking for longs now.