joshdance

I think this is simply your hindsight bias talking, Tom -- you are looking for reasons why the long didn't work, and how you could have prevented it, how you could have known that it was the wrong trade. I'm not crazy about the location of the long, but given the day so far I think it was a reasonable premise. Certainly we can improve our approach, methodologies, etc., but looking for every trade to be right, and to squeeze every last tick out of everything, will cause more harm than good IMO. Just my

nice job reversing tom, takes a good trader to do that... Here is a profile from recent lows of 86 to peak of 18 yesterday ... could 1401 - 1403 be a good target here, to initiate longs from? We will see.

lol CYP, I feel that way too sometimes. GS is calling for further easing this quarter. I suspect that if the fed is positive on the economic outlook, thus mitigating the need for further easing at this time, that the market will react in a bearish way, despite a stronger overall economy. Just what my logic says, would be interesting to hear contrary opinions.

If we get 13s, I'd say 17s or 20 is likely. Excess below, and making it all the way back to the top...

I want to buy here, but I am not encouraged but the lack of green so far... it seems a good time to ramp up strongly, and I think the green will come soon here, but I'd like to see it a bit earlier, when the low was made.

There's your 08 again Tom .. still a buyer?

Thank you SpearPoint -- it seems you have a good handle on how you personally define these terms. My observation is that many people do not. More people should be like you. Thank you for your comments, and I appreciate more than anything dissenters who expose different points of view! edit: Besides, SP, I said this in my first post: It's not personal, it's just in the spirit of joking.

Also, it's Good Friday, so no real trading going on. I do not want to be a thread spoiler, so I will make one comment and then observe only. This is NOT personal, and nothing against you Mystic, or anyone else contributing. This thread, while well meaning, is the reason so many beginners struggle; I know I did, and while I take responsibility for my own trading, wasting my time with these kinds of ideas is one thing that kept me from improvement when I first started 5 years ago. You come up with an idea -- a logical one, IMO: to trade a breakout of the 2 hour window before the NY market opens. Okay, simple enough, and logical enough. But wait, we have to optimize it. So, we talk about trend. So we add 2 moving averages. No matter that they're crossing all over each other like a DNA helix, just look for which one has the greater value at 8am. But wait, we need to optimize it more. So we add a time limit. But what if the range is too large (as it is this morning)? Let's limit the size of the "box" to ... And let's say that we will only buy a breakout when the RSI is ... And on, and on, and on, we go. And in the end we have a "system" which has done nothing but taught people how to mindlessly follow rules, and pay no mind to context, current events (FOMC minutes today anyone?), or market sentiment. At least the box idea was simple -- a bit naive mind you, and bound for failure over the long term, but simple. Now, instead of taking a step back and reexamining their approach to the market, people will see this and want to look for similar ideas--similar in what respect? Similar in the respect that they don't learn the instrument they are trading, but rather they learn to draw their box, and wait for the candle to close, and place their order, and pray/hope. And here is the real issue: you could backtest this strategy, and it may have a 65% win rate in the last 12 months, with a great positive expectancy. But you know what? It doesn't matter, because the person following this "system" has not learned to trade. And when this "system" goes ka-put (and it will, they all do over a large sample size), what does the trader do now? Draw the box from 6:30 to 7:30? Try it on another instrument? Consult more forums and ask for people's ideas on more systems? So my contention is that seeking systems, strategies, setups, and the like--they're all an attempt at a shortcut around the inevitable, namely, learning the market one is trying to trade and extract profits from. I won't make any more posts on this thread because I respect your goal and intentions Mystic, but this was my comment and now I'm done.

got 3 ticks on 1/2, and now a free trade, will bail at 12... I don't expect a profit here, just in case it wants to go, I'll be with it.

I have bought 12.75, and looking for 14 and 17 ... You never know what will happen today, this market is already bullish, talk of easing and accommodation could send this market to 1440, next major spx resistance.

Talk of qe3 and further accomodation despite recent positive economic growth on the wires from about 10:30... could see strong movement up into and after FOMC, IMO.

Nice Tom, I also bought 10 and scaled 1/2 at 11.25, the other half at 12.50 -- it was up pretty fast after I took it so I didn't bother with posting -- but so far it's a great range trading environment. I usually do better here than in trending, but I have only taken that one so far.

open well inside yesterday's range and balance, 75% relative volume, no directional conviction, FOMC minutes at 2pm ... good morning to watch unless something really jumps out at you IMO That being said, the little grind at the open, followed by positive reaction since news looks to me like the market is trying to go north. Doing a decent, not great, job so far.

Backblaze -- automated, never have to think about it, run it every night while I'm asleep, unlimited space, and $50 per year. Data stored non-locally. Can't beat it.

Most people do prefer them... to each his own my friend!

I see how you can say that because you see no transition from one bar to the next with hilo bars. But to me, I think that adding the open or close actually interrupts the flow. Who cares, on a 3000V bar, where the open and close is? I've explained my reasons for this in the "close of a bar is meaningless" thread so I won't repeat any of it here, but suffice it to say that marking where the last price traded every 3000 contracts traded does not give me useful information. I just need to see the extremes that printed, and with a small enough time frame like this I see the market flow, and adding the close and/or open only adds little "tick" marks to distract me!

Ah yes, MetaTrader... the software of choice for those who prefer a bit of antiquity in their trading.

Well some people use HLC bars and hide the open. Bars by default are usually OHLC. I personally use only HILO bars, with no open or close, because I don't use that information.

I guess the market agreed. Got a small piece of that last drop, 1 point.

DOM, not particularly. T&S, yes, for momentum. The problem with using T&S only and not having a volume reading otherwise is that during fast market conditions, when it is particularly helpful to watch T&S, most of transactions will never even print, because one has 60 or 70 lines visible on the tape, and there can easily be 1000 transactions in a second or two, so 90% will never reach the screen. So, to get an accurate picture of the actual transactions that traded, the only way is a cumulative volume histogram. Combine that with a delta reading and you have a nice "historical tape" that can verify what you're seeing as it goes by on the strip. I think this is important because often you will see fast transactions occur, when in fact very little volume actually traded. Other times, you will see a single burst, and notice that your eyes never saw the 4K that just traded in that millisecond or two. There's no other way to get around this I'm afraid... The market has changed so much since the days of Livermore and Wyckoff, the original tape readers... they would be astounded I'm sure.

I would think that buying at 1415 or slightly lower is so predictable, that it would have to go lower. Why make it so easy?

I always figured it was because I am annoying and it's easier to just leave than read all my crap...

Hey guys.. still here and sad to say hung onto the short. Added some at 16.50 on the attempt to break it, and got out at 15.25 for a loss of about 1.5 points per contract. Not good trading. I was doing my taxes today while sitting here so I have been a bit absent from the screen.

As far as what is "above," here's a tpo profile of a portion of spx. If the cash can trade to 1418, it's really quite bullish IMO; in other words, the market should not go much past 1413. Testing this area of high volume here should really be sufficient, and the longer we hang out here the more bullish it is. A quicker rejection down would be the ideal scenario.

lol, good one buddy as I said in that thread, it's a bit tongue in cheek and meant to be fun -- nice job on your long so far by the way, way to work it! I'd say your market dancing is superior to mine at the moment