mosley

Al, Thanks for stopping by this thread from time to time, and especially thanks for setting up your new site. Although in its infancy I've already gotten a number of useful pieces of information, with my favorite areas so far the extreme scalping bar-by-bar breakdown of the first couple hours of a day, and the last couple days of July charts with some commentary. Looking forward to further developments as your time and interest permit, and thanks again.

One other point on that trade, while the 9:45 bar was indeed an inside bar it was quite large and would have required a 3.00pt stop (entry 969.00, stop 972.00 or even 972.25 to exceed the adjacent 9:40 bar). In this case it worked. But in realtime with all the problems mentioned (gov't report due on next bar, huge stop required) and the fact that the market had showed quite a bit of strength to the upside didn't make it nearly as easy as it is now when we look back on the charts.

Thanks for your comments, and I agree nothing is perfect. Part of my post was to address the previous blanket statement (by another) that "any trade on either side of a strong trend bar is a good trade". I like the Al Brooks book alot, it contains quite a few useful insights, etc. Appreciate his many chart examples although it's a shame that pretty much all his described trades are winners. Would be much more realistic if he included losers too, as I seem to find them everywhere in real trading. And unfortunately I didn't get short at 969.00 as you mentioned since the entry would have come on the 9:50 bar and there was a market-moving gov't report due out at 9:55 (Consumer Sentiment). Obviously the market moved down and the trade would've worked fine. Having been nailed so many times in the past I'm still very tentative about entering trades right before gov't reports.

A couple of problems here. This morning our opening bar was a strong trend bar. Got long on its break at 969.75, and had a choice of a humongous 3.75pt stop (just below the bottom of the bar) or Al Brooks' more commonly recommended 2pt stop. Market went down to exactly 967.75 and immediately stopped me out for a 2pt loss. Then it reversed up. Did I get back in after just losing 2pts? No. Why should I trust it now to the upside after it just made a big bear-trend bar? Realtime and after-the-fact are so different. As to yesterday after the 9:50 pullback, the problem there was you would be entering on the 9:55 bar immediately before the market-moving 10:00am gov't report (Existing Home Sales). That's always risky as there is often wild fluctuations with those reports. Yesterday it would have worked just fine. Again, realtime and after-the-fact are so different.

Difficult morning for me. Of course in hindsight it's obvious, just jump in after the break of the opening bar high. Problems were many: the gap was small, only 1.50 pts, and to use Al Brooks' term the market was anything but "overdone" there was over 2 hrs of congestion in that general area from the previous afternoon, and as Al said on pg.305 regarding one of his examples where the market gapped down huge (which is theoretically better), formed an opening bear-trend bar, and yet he didn't short below it: "A short based on the bear trend bar would be risky, since it is in the area of the trading range of the final hour of the day before." a buy above the opening bar with a stop below it would've meant a 2.75pt stop if hit. While not excessive that's a bit steeper than I like to risk, especially with the other problems of the trade listed above on the 9:50 bar the market stalled, formed a bear-trend bar (or largish-bodied doji) and I considered a buy above it. But to that point there had been no big trend bars clearly pointing the way, and serious resistance was right overhead. Entry would've been 955.50 and yesterday's high was 956.75. nice pullback at 10:20/10:25 and in hindsight should've bought above the 10:25 bar. But in realtime I didn't because we had just completed 3 clear legs up and I didn't want to bet on a 4th leg. another nice pullback at 10:40-10:50 which, in hindsight, I should've bought above the 10:50 bar. But this time I would've been betting on a 5th leg. Obviously it worked. Also the 6th leg worked too. Go figure. I did play the 1st pullback to the EMA, but unlike the overwhelming majority of trend days that close at/near their high this one sold off and I was lucky to make 5 ticks. BTW, bakrob99, thanks for the tip re: MM being Money Management. Never heard that one before. Have, of course, heard of break-even (BE) stops, and trailing stops, but never money management stops! Good to know.

Maletor, thanks for posting your charts and more importantly your explanations. Simple question on your 1st trade above - what does MM mean? Didn't see it in Al Brooks' book, have never seen that particular abbreviation.