Plan the Trade

Definitely not an easy session.

Yes 200 tick bars. MP based on trades not volume, and I set it to calculate 20 bars.

hope you get back in the game soon

Just trading that Ger30 renko chart I posted yesterday keeps my hands away from the NQ, which I am not comfortable trading at the moment, so inspired both by my recent automation experiments and your post above, I have devised a cunning plan for global DAX domination :

Starting this morning, I will trade 1 unit (10c/pip) live; if a winning day (even 1c), I double position size the next day; if a losing day (even 1c), straight into sim the next day at last position size; if sim positive, back live at same position size; if not sim positive, stay in sim, reduce size by 50%, etc....

08.59 local... here we go...

Edit1 : great start : trade 1 made in sim mode, forgot to turn it off... restart... (sim trade is not shown on the chart, as only the trades made under the selected account are shown : I sold the break of the horizontal blue line).

Edit2 : Live trade #1 +20 points : forgot to mention this is my daily target as it equals +40 FDAX futures ticks (I will trade FDAX when global domination mode is reached ), so done for the day (9 minutes). Almost invariably better to be lucky than smart.



Comment on goal to trade FDAX futures once more. This is a difficult contract to trade : it is as volatile as the NQ (good and bad, as we have been seeing lately) & spread can blip momentarily open from 1 to 3 or even 4 or 5 ticks, so really tight stops are doomed. It also requires intraday $2500 margin/contract... BUT it's €12.50/tick, about $15, so the equivalent of 3 x NQ,which would be $1500 intraday margin... and here's the really positive kicker : those 3 x NQ will cost about $15 commission per round trip, ie. one full tick; the FDAX contract will cost about €3.35/under $5. That really adds up when day trading...

But can I really do this trading like a ?

Interesting concept JT. Watching in anticipation!)

I have come to realise that my timescales are going to be somewhat longer.

I didn't sleep well last night, going over my previous two trading sessions. You're going to laugh at this, but i purposely over-rode my EW thoughts in these sessions, trying to (somewhat) mechanicalise things. Many of the trades, didn't 'sit' well with me and there is the answer. It just didn't work.

There has to be more to it than that and i think sitting with other charts open during the day is a mistake. Fatigue sets in before the trading session even starts (it is 16:30 here for me, at US open).

Over the past 18 months i have recognised that i trade 'corrective' chop far more successfully then i do the faster, more direct impulse moves.

Now that's a strange one, cos generally, it is supposed to be the opposite - traders make their money during impulse moves and give it all back in corrective phases.

But because the deep retraces happen more often during the latter, it suits this style.

With that in mind, i have decided to go back to trading the later afternoon session again. I was definitely having more luck when i concentrated on this time as opposed to the open, before.

The beauty of contracts and having targets of as little as 20 ticks a day, is that it really shouldn't be a probelm to do regardless of the phase we are in - i mean, even in corrective chop there are swings of 20/30/40 ticks etc. I also found that i could trade a much faster tick rate, often 133 chart and find trades with a mere 6 tick stop.
I prefer that. Maybe it wont be suitable for the moment, whilst it's all gone a bit crazy, but it was working well before.

My going off and using SB's and thus changing to different charts, varying the method, didn't work as well as i had hoped.

Like i said yesterday, the incredibly thin margins between success and failure can even be down to the platform you use. The slippage by City Index is ridiculous and they have you by not having an auto stoploss method. You either have to manually close if the position goes quickly against you (and suffer an extra pip slippage on top of the 1 pip spread), or you get caught whilst trying to manually add your stop after opening the position. Neither of which are any good for the bank balance when scalping.

I hear you, CG, & I'm definitely not laughing. I know what you mean by trader fatigue and when this sets in, a break is needed, even if only for a few days. I think the last 90 minutes is the best time to trade the US index futures : the whole day's SR is there to see in addition to which if it's been a strongly directional day, there will often be a strong retrace as the larger intraday traders unwind their positions.

Spread bets seem to be a great way to go for swing trades, especially if you are UK-based... but if you're an hour ahead of CET (I thought you were in London for some reason) ... Ukraine ?

That would be because of my impeccable use and knowledge of the English language?!)

wow the CPI really spooked the market. Down 130 pts in 3 minutes!

with crude news in 15 minutes, I will call it a day. 3 trades 2 +1's and 1 for +24 had 2 other trades lined up did not connect.

too afraid to take the most beautiful trade of the day on the bottom left due to it just having broke that long trend line. doesnt matter though, daily target hit

got some back

disappointing to get +1 on the first short and the long here looking back:

R When do you move your stop to + 1? TY

That question was for erasmus66--sorry

30 minutes of trading the NQ today...96 ticks with 2 contracts = 192 ticks
I don't show chart because I scalped today with a total of 26 trades.

Super trading

Continuing on from earlier;

This is exactly what i was talking about regarding the way she trends later and also the difference between the Impulse cycles and the Corrective one's;



Now, sure... if you can get aboard before an impulse move takes off, but you simply never know when one is about to start.... and very rarely they give you a lovely 123 trigger and pullback to get you on your way. Look at how, as soon as they return to trend, they just take off like a rocket.

Yes, the hook's work, but i'm more interested in the trades within the corrective phases. 123, trigger deep pullback and look at how the 133 tick identifies the turning points with candle bodies. I don't know why it works well, but that seems to have been the case for several months that i have been using it. Change to a different tick rate and it often spoils it.

I took two of those trades, but nervousness (perhaps higher after Mon/Tues losses, or due to the fact that i am going to keep a running total of each days trades consecutively making it feel much more like live trades), made me bring my stoploss in too quickly resulting in 2 BE's. In effect i am minus 2 commissions.

I'm not worried. I needed this. Sure i should have taken all of those trades and left the stop as per normal. There would have been 100 ticks+ if giving the trade a chance and then bringing the stoploss in tighter once a good total was accrued on each trade.

Hey ho... hindsight and all, but wow... if it wasn't for human emotion, it really would be that easy...

Well done to Olarion. Nice trading - That is what i'm talking about. I might start getting drunk each day before trading... get some Dutch courage! (Just kidding!)))

have been using up 6 sl to +1 but thinking this is too tight at moment .. thinking of moving it to up 10 +1

During my review of today action I noticed something that I did not see when it happened live. I thought it was very interesting and made a short video.

Some of my best trading is thanks to herbal remedies lol