james_gsx

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

That's another big issue that affects my day trading and sometimes swing trades - taking a trade in the middle of a range. I bought an ES put the other day in the middle of the range, knowing it was in the middle of the range - against a spinning top on support (midpoint) - dumb move and I paid for it lol

I am on my cell phone so I will do my best to respond. I didn't take the long - because I needed to ice my shins and ankle from running I was in too much pain and couldn't stick around lo lame excuse I know. Any other "normal" day I still would have not taken the trade simply because I don't like taking day trades on the 15min bar, I prefer the 5. I also know I would have a hard time holding something that long without getting out too early. Thats a lack of confidence on my part. I have plenty of confidence with my TA, especially on the daily time frame, but once I take the trade and I don't see immediate results I get figidity. I definitely need to work on trusting myself while in the trade just as much as I do doing the analysis. I will say this trade today confirmed that I need to trade what I see and just go with it. But technically I still got out eary and thus we will have a huge down day tomorrow and I will feel like a fool

I would say that the potential for volatility to move against me was one of the other reasons I got out at the first sign of weakness on the 15min. Had this been a year ago when the market was going up all the time, things would be different. It looks like we might be setting up for another spinning top.

I figured I should post a quick update. I got out of my position this morning as the ES and YM were unable to break support, and looked very weak in those areas. With 70+ pts in my pocket I didn't want to give a lot of it back, so I got out. I decided wait and see if the support broke - which it didn't - so I promptly got out. 70 pts isn't bad for a little over nighter, and overall I'm happy with my trade. I will also admit that I moved my stop at the open towards break even, mainly to eliminate the potential risk and lock in profits. We will see how things go at the close today, if price ends up hitting my designated target then so be it. I still made money for my bottom line, and at the end of the day that's what I see on my P&L. Unlike some people I will stick my head out and again provide proof of my trade. Accountability is a big issue on forums, and I want to show that if you properly use candlesticks with a positive risk/reward then it can pay off. Also for swing trades, it can be effective to drill down to smaller time frames to plan entries and exits. This wasn't the best trade, but it was a trade that still fit within my plan. Feel free to point out things that are wrong with it, or things that are right.

I regularly trade 10k ES contracts at a time, no biggy :o Brownsfan and those VSA boys are basically my bitch out there :rofl: just kidding of course. My goal for the 10k is under 40mins. That supposedly puts me at a regional class, and would mean I should supposedly run a mile under 6 minutes.

If I may... the YM looks like a better short candidate than the ES. Reason being, it hit perfect resistance against the 100EMA, and that will prove to be a key resistance level. Compared to the ES, that could be still technically be in a range bound market. So I will enter the YM trade tonight since I'm okay with the potential $ loss.

How about this, if we break the low of the spinner tomorrow with strength then I will buy 1 ES put, or maybe even short the ES futures. (i prefer the put). By strength I mean, I don't want a hammer at the low on the 15 min the short it as that would be a dumb move. But if the market shows me the lows broke with strength then I will take the trade and post it on here. Who is in with me?

Today I went out and picked up some running gear and a new pair of running shoes. I took one of my dogs out for a nice 1 mile run, and enjoyed it quite a bit. I realized the BolderBoulder event is coming up at the end of May, and I want to run in it. It's a 10k run, and it will be a challenge since I've never done anything like this. I have been an athlete most of my life. I haven't done anything in 3 or 4 years, I am out of shape (sort of). I was able to run today without too much of a problem, but I couldn't run for more than 2 miles that's for sure. I have a strong heart from playing soccer so I guess that might help. My biggest problem is I am a sprinter, I have always played soccer and basketball so I tend to run too fast for any sort of long distance. Also, since I haven't run in forever I need to get myself ready. Luckily I have a friend who runs cross country and he has agreed to help me. So far we put together a training program for the next several weeks, and it looks tough :o We talked about icing my shins and legs, and all the stretches. I know some of you are runners, so if you feel like you could give me some advice I would appreciate it. I am very excited, as this will be a huge physical challenge to me. I know for some people 10k is nothing, but I've never done it before and I haven't done any sport in a while so it won't be easy. I will accomplish it though, regardless of the physical pain.

Basically because it lies in the eye of the beholder. For someone as experienced as brownsfan who knows exactly what he's looking for - could be useful. But for a newbie, they would go hammer hunting and blow their account in a week. Overall, you really want to focus on the size of the body and the wick. This shows you the battle between the bulls and bears - it's all visual. If you are not a visual person, you will suck at reading candles. If you could setup a program that would fire off a signal based off a specific candle and other characteristics that might be different. But most people just want to setup a program to hold their hand so they can buy every candle signal. Yet they'll end up missing the big picture. But like I said in my other post, candles don't work for everyone. I set up a trade the other week using bar charts. I did okay, but once I switched from bars to candles I did much better. While others might have been confused, the trade concept made more sense to me. I'm done ranting, time to make a new thread :o

Trader273 makes a great point about looking at the whole technical picture. I can't even count how many times I screwed up because I didn't look at the whole picture. I saw a candle, and took the trade then gave my money back. Or I take a trade, seeing the candle disagreeing with me, and lost. Candles are the same thing as bars, they just display the information in a different manner - but the high/low/open/close is all the same. There is no possible way that it's wrong, because theres no possible way that price is wrong. The reason people screw up is because they don't pay attention and look for specific candles. For some candles work great with their personality, others not so much. That doesn't mean it's wrong or right. I get tired of people acting like candles are some sort of indicator, they aren't indicators - simply price! People also spend too much time looking for trend reversals in candles. They get a doji at the top of a trend, and short like crazy. The next few days price moves sideways, then pops back up and they lose their shirt. Then they log onto elitetrader and say candles don't work. It's not like a MACD crossover, the only thing that happened was price stalled due to a lack of demand. You would get that same information from a bar or line chart. Now had that spinning top came at a major resistance area with strong volume, it would most likely be a good short for a small retracement of the overall trend. Then that same guy would log onto ET and pretend he knew the secret to trading, just to blow his gains the next week falling into another stupid mistake newbies make. I do it all the time, except I don't waste my time on ET. The problem isn't with candles, but with my inconsistency, I let emotion take over and ignore the painfully obvious signals. In fact, I would be willing to bet that if you could dumb down VSA and combined it with market profile and candlesticks you could have one hell of a strategy. The only downfall would be the simple fact it's discretionary, and that in itself would set up many for failure. As for the OP, it might be more useful to have specific candles highlighted to help you train your eye in real time. But I wouldn't make any trades off it. Then once you have a good idea what to look for, take it off and see how you do. I bet you quickly realize though that the name of the candle is meaningless, but the shape is rather important..

I would want at least 1:1.5 (risk $1 to make $1.50) if your odds are like that. Obviously, the more the better. This way, if you take a series of losers after a series of winners you won't be back at break even.

I think the close above or below $100 will be crucial.

Well... I'm glad I sold a little bit a few days ago Let's look at the monthly chart since we finished that last night. It doesn't look too pretty from a CA perspective..

Hmmmm.... what's everyones thoughts on this candle for the monthly chart??

Inverted hammer, where the wick touched resistance. Might be over with the retracement and more selling pressure from here. The more I look at this, the bulls have had plenty of chances for a strong rally, but they can't get it done. That shows a lot of weakness to me.

Not sure why they did this, considering the risks JPM carries in buying BSC. The only real reason they bought BSC was too prevent a complete market collapse. Theres a good article in the Economist about the current crisis and it has good information about the BSC and JPM acquisition, pretty scary to think about what would have happened if no one came in to buy BSC. I guess they made a higher bid to please a few of the pissed off billionaire shareholders.

Well setting up a 15min chart is worth at least looking at. Whether or not you trade it from it is your own decision, but I wouldn't put down the opportunity to look at it. You never know, it could be way too boring for you, or you could love it.

:haha:

The advantage of VBCs and candlesticks is you bring volume into the equation. There are definitely pros and cons like brownsfan said, and you really do have to find your niche with them. Ultimately I have gone through plenty of time frames, and I consistently see the clear candlestick setups on the 15, then broken down into the 5 and 3.

Brownsfan - I actually was telling myself that while writing the thread, but for some reason I never typed it out But you are absolutely correct, a higher time frame will give you better signals. I think that may be one reason why I'm much better swing trading than day trading. Trader273 - That was a 15 minute chart. Overall, I was just trying to show the basics of candles and how the body tends to get smaller at the end of trends. Habi - you bring up a very good point. These "reversal" signals don't necessarily mean reversal, in the case of a trend on a 5 minute chart they could simply mean the trend will take a break. It should tell you to either take some profits if you are already in the trend, or wait for the pullback to get back on the train.

Please pardon the joke of the title. What I want to discuss here is how to really read the candles. Some things have been discussed lately that I feel display a lack of true understanding of candles. 1 - The name of the candle is irrelevant. 2 - Candles are not some fancy indicator, they are just another visualization of price action 3 - If you disagree with the top two, go eat a cookie and come back in two hours. As you can see in this simple 15 minute chart a similar characteristic comes up before a major move. This is important, so put on your reading glasses and take out your pen and notepad (you better have one you newbie traders you). Ready? The body of the candle gets smaller, this indicates a lack of pressure in the current trend To make it simple, when price is going up and you see a spinning top/doji all it simply means is bulls are losing steam. There isn't a lot of demand to push price higher, thus the smaller body. The wick simply means someone came in, and pushed price in the other direction. It does not mean go short or long, it simply means price may have hit a point and needs to slow down or reverse. Look closely at the candles I outlined in the sample. The hammer that I know you all know I'm talking about, is a great example. The wick indicates price kept selling but buyers came in, that's all that matters. There were more buyers at that level than sellers, and price went up. We can now call this the, "James is brilliant" candle, since it really doesn't matter. Now a lot of newbies including myself would say, "but price didn't immediately go up". But that's where you, and myself, would be incorrect. It simply means there are more buyers, and the probability of price going up is higher. Remember, this is a business of probabilities. A few candles later price did reverse and go up, then at 1340 a "spinning something" finally came. But notice how it was now on support? That's a good thing, it means buyers are keeping the price stable and allowing for more buyers to come in. Then we get the inverted hammer after our 12pt run. There is something meaningful about this inverted hammer, it's up against resistance. Notice how we hit that price point earlier and it made that super small doji? Well, that means there aren't anymore buyers. That wick tells us more sellers came in and pushed price down. A few candles later, down we went... to a doji and hammer! I think you know where I'm going with this... And for grins, I threw in the same chart using bars and line. Similarities come up, guess what they are. Have a nice trading day.

I assume we are still on for this Friday? Yeah?

Well I have a lot of loyal dedication to Mercedes. They have great customer service, and that means a lot to me coming from where I work. I bought my car almost a year ago, and the salesmen still knows me on a first name basis - along with most of the people in the dealership. Maybe I'll have enough money to buy a new BMW and Merc You only live once, why not make the most of it.

Walter - I wish I got to try the M6. But I don't think they would let a 20 year old behind the wheel of a $90,000 sports car Cosmic - I love the BMW diesels and I wish we had them here. I am waiting for one to come out here so I can test drive one. I think the drive will be awesome along with the torque. The only issue I have is I heard rumors they will only bring an automatic.