Fluke

As noted price has made it from the low of the ON range to just shy of the high pre-open. Failure at the top of the range and back to the MP. Reversal of the MP and back up to the highs. Bouncing around at the MP, my least favorite place to trade. Will be waiting for a test of the extremes and a REV, or a B&RET. Break out the downside, no chance of a REV. Bouncing from YHIGH. Strong bounce, LRH breached, trading the next RET long. -in -up to the range MP -testing the range low - failure, out LRL breached, trading next RET short. -in -expecting low to break immediately, it does -down through the top of the range I had marked on the 5000t -some potential congestion near yesterday's close -exit partial -exit remainder on failed continuation, out Back up to the range low and bounce back down HL, trading long -in -violent response buy sellers to the first impulse by the buyers, out Sitting tight for the time being. Hinge/micro range. Break up and out of the range/hinge, B&RET planned Back up into the ON range. And back down to the micro range And back up to the ON range. Will pass on the short RET back into the micro range And another hinge. Break out to the downside back into the former micro-range. I have other things to be doing rather than watching this market coil.

Where we are currently... Daily - back above the mean of the down channel, having bounced hard from the previuos lows, down channel demand line, and longer term up channel mean. Perhaps a trip to the down channel supply line is in the making. 5000T - all of the action down at the lows of the down channel has created a lateral range, of sorts. The boundaries are rough, but the image is there. Potential areas of interest are marked on the chart. 10M - as is often the case, the ON session formed a fairly clean and definable lateral range. Just before I got to my desk, a DL break, RET, and entry occurred at the lower extreme of this range. It is now testing the MP, and I believe will likely test the other side. Unless it can't make it there before the open, in which case I would see a move back to test the lower extreme as a likely scenario.

Google - Macro, Daily, 5M from today. Looks an awful lot like....

Excellent - I'll look into that. I suppose this is one of the benefits of having a more "full service" brokerage like TD Ameritrade can be of use. I'd prefer not to pay $7/RT for it though.

Microsoft - Macro, Weekly, Daily, 60M

Apple - Macro, Weekly, Daily, 5H

Thanks DB. Do you mind if I ask how often you reference these individual securities? Is it a daily occurrence, or similar to the weekly NQ chart, perhaps once a week? Or rather, perhaps driven more by a specific occurrence (i.e. today's massive range)?

Do you have a data feed that provides that? Is there a free, interactive chart similar to Investing.com?

What I'm looking at...

Thanks Niko. I feel that I do, but still can easily get in my own way if I'm not focusing :crap:

Big hinge just prior to the open. Rejection at the top of the ON range. Tried a long. Failed. Tried short on the first RET out of the hinge. Failed. Swift move up and through the Hinge EP after failed exploration down. Long on pb to it. -Rejection at upper high of yesterday's range. -Large pb, still believe LOLR is up, holding. -Break to NH, moving stop. -Parabolic high vol (PHV), exit partial. Oh man, crrrrrrappy fill. -At Hourly RES. Initial reaction, but swift catch by buyers. And past it. [i realized late that this was the mean of the daily trend channel.] -DL tested for a second time, but nothing more than a poke the first time, and this time. -Onto a NH, DL fanned. -Again. -[Lot of air up here - ] -DL poke again, losing a bit of the up-steam. -Close below DL = Exit. SL traced. Have chosen to pass on the short due to the ferocity of the upmove and lack of capituation volume. [should have just taken the short][Had I just looked at my daily chart I would have realized where we had turned from and probably been more apt to take the earlier short. That probably would have been scratched and I would have had to re-enter where I entered in reality, so perhaps it worked out for the best.] LRL (last reaction low) breached. Bounce from ON range high, SL still intact. SL breach Swift response by sellers - short. -SL traced -NL -> SL tightened. -right at the hinge EP, finding some friction. Out patial [when I go out partial, the worst I will do on the remainder is BE.] -NL SL fanned. -getting close to testing back inside the ON range. -very widespread going into the opening low and back into the ON range. -testing the ON range MP, likely to at least test the other side. -and there it is. -going parabolic. And swift response by buyers. Exit - better fill than before. And that about does it for me. EDIT: To be clear, I didn't quit. I had other obligations this morning. Be that as it may, I could have left a single position to run as this has been a nice move down. I am uncomfortable doing so currently, although all that would really be at stake would be unrealized gains.

Where we are currently:

Or if you prefer....

What I'm looking at -

Got it - I don't need to insert them into the body of the text, they will just show up automatically at the end of the post. Thanks -

I am using the management attachments button (the paperclip) at the top of this window I'm in now, the reply window. I browsed for it on my computer, uploaded it, and then back in the reply window, clicked on the paperclip again which produced a drop down menu of the uploads I made. I then clicked on one of them. Is there a different way of putting images in other than that process?

Today was not an excellent start on my part. I was biased long from the open, and that opinion caused me to be very late on the short. And when I finally went short, my first stop limit was not filled, so I had to filler lower on the next RET. Further, I had some issues with my order entry platform - trade management moves on my DOM were causing the trade to just exit. After trying to log off and log back on, I was unable to connect. I will update with a chart of my early entries when I can get back logged into my brokerage. It appears I am missing an excellent run. EDIT: Logged back in now. The first two trades were taken from the 15 second chart. The second trade was exited in two locations. The third trade was where I had an error trying to move in my stop from its initial disaster location. It just exited the trade. It happened to be beneficial to my trade at this time, but didn't want to continue without figuring out the error, which seemed to be more of a problem than I initially believed given I couldn't log back in until now.

Weekly Daily 4HR 2500Tick At some point I will discuss line colors/thickness/plot style. EDIT: It appears these charts are miniature when clicked on. I am not sure what the issue is, but will update when I have time. EDIT 2: It appears a small chart opens in a new tab, but a large chart opens in a new window. Am I uploading correctly?

Introduction For several years, I have maintained a previously public and currently private blog journaling my operations in the spot currency and futures markets. Recently, I have decided to more actively participate in the public forums to perpetuate the abundance of good information that has been provided by a certain member/moderator of this forum as well as continue to advance my own understanding of the workings of a market and how to profit from them. I now trade only the NQ futures and this journal will focus on trading using price, volume, and time in the context of an auction market, both in its lateral and diagonal sense of movement. I never hold a trade over night and rarely will hold beyond the first 90 minutes of the RTH session. I use a combination of bar intervals to monitor the NQ's trend, traders' current location within that trend, my entry location, and the management of my position. These include but are not limited to (from longest interval to shortest) the weekly, daily, 4H, 60M, 30M, 2500 Tick, 10M, 5M, 1M, 15 second. The basics of my entry plan are that of the Straight Line Approach (SLA) - I use supply and demand lines (SL/DL) to track the intensity and determination of buyers and sellers, as well as to alert me of changes in the stride and/or direction of the market and trade retracements (RET) should the change in stride be significant enough to warrant the entry and/or the location be "important" enough to warrant an entry. I will on occasion take reversal (REV) entries from the extremes of lateral and/or diagonal ranges at areas of lateral support or resistance as determined by my current read of the auction's state (AMT), given circumstances that are favorable for a more aggressive entry. I do not trade breakouts of anything, but instead will wait for a breakout and retracement prior to entering (B&RET). My plan for this journal is to provide, at a minimum, 11 posts per week. Sunday night's post will be an update of the larger bar intervals, weekly and daily charts, so as to provide context for the upcoming week. I may also at times reference daily charts during the course of the week in my morning prep. Monday through Friday, prior to the RTH open, or my first trade of the day should that occur prior to the RTH open, I will post my "pre-trade" analysis - this includes typically one of the longer bar intervals (Daily, 4HR, 1HR) which mostly easily depicts the current trend of the market, and one or two of the medium bar intervals (30M, 2500 tick, 10M) which most easily depicts the market's current location in that trend. [it is most certainly not mutually exclusive, but I find that applying diagonal ranges (trend channels) to the larger bar intervals, and lateral ranges (boxes) to the medium intervals has "clicked" the best for me.] At the conclusion of my trading for the day, I will follow up with a 1M and, on occasion, a 15 second chart, showing actual trades placed and managed during the course of my session, and any accompanying discussion I find appropriate. Do I make mistakes, in entry, exit or both? Yes, I do. Do I misread the market? Yes, I do. Do I suffer from bouts of irrational fears that cause deviations from my plan? Yes, I do. Do I have an ego that can cause more trouble than its worth? Yes, I do. This is why I continue to and will always journal - and in moving to a more public setting than my current arrangement, perhaps more errors will be brought to my attention. But perhaps, also, my detailing of my trading will help something "click" with someone. And helping is better than hiding, and can often turn into the best "therapy" the helper could ever receive. So enough of this - it's time to get started.