ckait

Great start thanks for the participation ill try and do better whith the charts on the next one.

Ive been looking in on TL since the begining, the one thread ive never seen on this or any other site is, what is your best and favorite most consistantly profietable trade. Some people say they wont share because then their trade won't work any more. I personally dont think that is the case, and would like to open the discussion with the offering up of my favorite trades so maybe some will share with great setups also. Basically I run a 3 min Bar chart around a 30 min time frame. The trade is for picking up bottoms at VAL or below. This trade usually happens at least once a day and can be used on tops or bottoms but I mainly use it for bottoms. After the IB and there is extension to the downside, usually consisting of at least one wide spread bar, you get a very narrow spread 30 min bar that i call the base bar. This bar usually has a three to five pt. spread but it only has to be narrow compared to the large spread of the down bar. Once a consecutive 30 min bar breaks the high of the base bar get long on a pullback to the high vol point or a tick above the high vol point of the base bar. Usually this is at least a 4 point trade but often it rotates all the way to VAH. Risk at entry 6 ticks on ES (thats the only thing Iuse this trade on). I've never posted a chart here yet and will try and figure it out and post one or two in my next post just so I dont loose all this typing.

Are you aware that the adx only told you what happened before and not what will happen in the future? Do you use support and resistance in your trading? By what means do you determine what will be support and resistance? If not the road to riches will elude you longer than your account will last,(in most cases anyway).There is no easy trading method. If there was everybody would do it and it would no longer work. The markets work on pure supply and demand. If you can figure out some kind of an edge to guage a short term imbalance between the supply and demand then you would be able to make an informed trading decision. Keep looking but look inside the price and yourself not the list of canned indicators and holy grails.good luck

Another thing, nobody knows how long a trend may continue for or if support will hold or not. There are endless waye to determine support or resistance. If you have levels to take trades at where you usually get a bounce of some kind, put the trade on take some off for a quick profiet and if you get stopped on the rest at B.E who cares. Or you could leave your stop at your original entry to let the whole trade be at B.E. so you should maybe try and think a little more flexible you could even take some off at a point and then buy it back again all can be profietable if done correctly. It takes time and practice. If your trying to hit homeruns in the bigs and your still in little league your gonna get hurt. Try and learn to bunt ,talke some walks,a few singles and in time you should see the potetiail for bigger gains. Here is another way to put it If you try and stuff a whole pizza in your mouth at once it probably wont work,but if you take small bites you'll eventually get full. Trading accounts grow the same way.

First thing a trending market is making higher highs and higher lows. You must know what time frame you are trading. If you are trading a 2 hour chart a trend will mean something different than a two minute chart. So try to pick entries that are the most favorable to your time frame. If a time segment is going to keep trending what is the limit of the amount that it can go to keep the trend intact I personally like to trade around 80% of the hourly and thirty minute.

Just be glad you still in sim mode. You need a better strategy. There are a thousand of places every day price will pause, reverse, stall, accelerate, balance and breakout. The trick is to get enough screentime and a method of organizing your charts so you can recognize these areas. You only need a few good set ups and patiance. From your post is seems like you have no set ups just going long when price is going up and short when it is going down. You will crash and burn with this approach in my opinion. Start with one good set up master that than find another and so on. There are many tools available to display the chart, I like MP and Delta footprint charts but they're not the answer alone screen time is the key.

Lately breakouts are rare and short lived on ES, last two day's excluded, they were a staple for the last year or so but trading the range has been much better lately. get some MP or volume profile experience and your off to the races.

Since I am a profile trader entries can be a little obscure a times. Trying to initiate a trade based on a developing profile can be a difficult thing, take it at the edge or the poc every day is a little different. After saying that, if you have a set up that is is as much gut as structure, lets say because of a price action or order flow type of pattern, whos to say you cant just jump in. Now I'm not talking sbout blind throwing money at the market, but sometimes pattterns show up in different ways, like in a gut feeling. So if you have a defined amount your willing to risk and and a pretty good idea of your first target, why not take the trade? This question I guess is more geared to those who actually make a living doing this, and i have a feeling a lot of the most sucsessful traders have something like this in their arsenal. Hope this can start something .

Both work equally well. If your tring to pinpoint to the tick where things are going to happen you will dissapointed. Having said that the two are usually not that far apart, and if you are concistant in doing the same thing (provided it is a good stratagy) you should do ok. If your bouncing back and forth between the two and looking too close for entries it can be frustrating. using a filter such as tape or delta or some type of order flow at you level could help as well.

Maybe I should have said that a little differently, save at least half of your capital for once you can grow it. Obviousyl deception would not be a good idea. Besides who better than you wife to put her foot up your .... when you doing the wrong thing.

A degree from an Ivy Leauge school will cost more money than I care to think about.Having children lol, not that they are going to one, the only point is even those who went and spent the dough on this education are not guaranteed a job or more importatly suscess especially for a degree in trading if one even exists. Ive blown a couple accounts figuring its just tuition. The best advice I can give you is try not to sim, unless you can absolutly repeat the same reactions when real money is on the line. EVERYTHING changes profiet targets, stops, bailing on trades not taking trades just to name a few. Its not an impossible dream but pretty close and it takes time or and money to learn. You can buy a good system and fail to execute it properly and make it a looser and it doesnt take long to burn through 42k. Save at least 20 k your wife doesnt know about so when you finally get it you have enough money left to make it count.

Just curious if anyone had actual trade results for using straight VSA trading ES mini on an irntraday basis using a 3 min time frame? Not that im not a fan I love the concepts and many are spot on. The only issue Im adressing is the way price is pushed around on low volume by the pros to shake you out of good trade locations. During the day after the initial drive away from the opening range, when the "smart money" has left the market who is it making your life miserable ? Is it just the eb and flow of normal trade or something a little more sinister? Probably a little of both . And do you stay in the trades your in when the shift has occured or do you let the runners go? Could be an interesting side bar if there is any input . Hope a few posts could get something going.

Guess I should have looked closer at your post. Take 20% off the high of friday enter there with your stop above the high same effect.

If you were in the trade already, where would your stop be? Thats where you enter the trade use a 20% of the range or the next support or resistance level for your stop. That will give you basically an 8 to 2 ratio pretty good if the market is really ranging. Thats one way.

If your looking for someone too teach you how to trade your probably not going to find what your looking for. If your looking for someone to help you understand how the market works, thats a different thing all together and theres a lot of info on that good and bad. Even if you get a profietable system from someone doesnt gaurantee that YOU can make the same system profietable. So becareful where you spend your money. The best way is too learn for your self after being steered in the right direction.IMO.

Agreed, maybe the way I personaly look at it i can tell (or think i can tell ) if its a larger time frame coming in thats all.

Ive been trading the ninja platform for a year using amp, I use stop market orders and have rarlely gotten any slippage occasionally i got a couple ticks. The biggest problems ive heard of from peolpe is usually that they get stoppped when placing orders if they're using a tight stop when theres a spike in activity and the screen freezes do to insufficiant computer.

I disagree with that a little it takes a larger time frames to move a market away from value, so if you have a move away on good volume the move should have more legs. I do agreee one should try and figure what timeframe is in control and when they loose it.

It alway's suprises me when i read posts where traders dismiss the importance of volume in the intraday workings of the market. I have been on this forum since when there was fewer than 500 subscribers maybe even 200 I cant recall, its been a treat watching the site grow along side my own abalities. Recently thrust into the world of making my living off trading intraday, for those looking too start trading or looking too further their own growth as a trader, I cant stress enough how important it is to learn the places where volume comes into the market and its implication at the time. Im not a devote of VSA although it is a great place to start. Volume comes in at key times in the day usually tied to a pending reversal or at least a short time retreat of the latest activity. Low volume up moves can go all day without much resistance until a little volume shows up, or the rapid decent of a panic market whos end in marked by a high volume spike into the previous days high volume area. Not claiming to have all the answers by any means only to get the minds of new traders to find a way to get the ball rolling and realize that volume does have a place in you arsenal and should be incoperated in one way or another. Mery Xmass

price needs to trade through your target not just to it i had the same issue when i first started using auto break even so have it move to BE at 7 ticks instead of 2 pts or what ever your number. also you will get slippage during FOMC days if your not prepared for that better to sit those days out.

Actually the first trade i took was short from 960 there were a few rotations there, from the way down the day before that should have and did give a nice kick just incase that was going to be the high of the IB. I really didnt expect the up move to go all the way back to the 84 level, that just goes to show you follow the structure as it developes and try not to add your personal bias into it (easier said than done).

The initial balance had strong upward bias so i was taking longs on a pullback to ths poc in e period

After reading your post again I guess I didnt really answer your question, you need to have some way to read orderflow as price moves into the area in witch you want to trade. I use price/volume action and delta to decide if im going too fade a top or go with a breakout. A little VSA never hurts either ultra high volume up bars into resistance are great places to put a trade on same on the lows.

here is one example, if the market goes through the daily balance area high and extension is made on good volume, new longer term buyers are present in most cases. If price had been rejected as it moved higher there would have been no new longer term buyers, maybe longer tem sellers. Bottom line is for the market to leave value it takes longer tieframe participiants to move it. The catch is like everything else there is no way to know ahead of time if they are there or not (to my knowledge anyway) you trading strategy should have a way to deal either senario.