Plan the Trade

looked like a 123 connection to short

I missed that by 1 tick (using 3.25 Point stop)

can you show me chart

I only use a 3 point stop what is high and low of 3 point bar

For the 20s:


For your 30s:


The PB reached 7396.25

I wrote a simply study to show the mid point for the swing point bar. That is the triangle you see on some bars in my screenshots (+/- a configurable offset, I use 1tick).
My default stop is 3.25, default TP is 6.5; a tick wider both ways from you, but I often tighten the stop a tick or two.

I didn't take any more trades. I also use a 512 trades chart to bring some clarity in some case. Thanks go to ddaytrader for that. I had tried quite a few other numbers for a trades period chart and didn't fit well, but 512 seems just about right for me for what I am using it for. Here is my day on the 512T:

512T does look nice most of the time

Funny ... because I have started looking at the 30 second chart this week thanks to your charts and I have found 30 second and 512 tick to be very complimentary with one another.

Good thread here as we are all helping one another by sharing.

Pushed price down to Monday's lows.

I am not sure if your triangle is the midpoint of HH-LL range. I am looking into ziggys a bit closely in Sierra and the standard study as a lot of useful features for us to incorporate including the length in ticks and bid/ask volume bars at the ZZ levels. All this atleast looks great after the leg is completely formed and unpredictable during the formation of last leg but there are definite telltale signs. I am currently exploiting the combination of 1) midpoint of ZZ 2) midpoint of each bar 3) average of midpoint of bar+zz to get a directional bias towards to next leg of hh/hl/ll/lh endpoints. Fascinating stuff !

Another TIP.... look into the hh/hl/ll/lh endpoints from past that are NOT yet broken for directional clues. Don't have all the rules nailed down so research is in the works. From what I can tell, there is definitely an edge!

EDIT: Here's the delivered study that has all the goodies I mentioned

EDIT2: With ZZ Midpoint enabled

That is correct. I offset it by a tick. I might pull that study out of the source file it is in and tweak it to work with Sierra's remote build option later. It is a very simply ACSIL study. I might be useful for some and it would only take me a few minutes to do that.

Yeah, their zigzag has quite a few options. It is pretty decent as zigzag indies go.

For me, I found I had better luck using my own judgement with a few guidelines. When I am not sure of structure, I look for two up bars (or down bars) to confirm it is legit swing (or otherwise 3 bars as long as the end is greater/less than the previous two bar's high/low) and at least one of them (two is better) have corresponding up or down volume. I not clear why, but for me, I found up/down volume works better than bid/ask volume . I don't focus on this at all, but only as a quick check when a swing isn't obvious. But, often, if it isn't obvious then it is best to just pass (which can be tough to code/formulate)

Mid point of swing bar, ACSIL C++ study attached as a text file. Instructions at the top of the file. Let me clear though, I am not offering support for this. It is a very simple study and easy to compile with Sierra's remote build functionality so anyone with Sierra Chart should have no trouble getting it working. And it is simple enough even non programmers may? be able to understand what it does. I am not much for forums, chatting, and so forth, but I have gotten value from this thread and those who have posted here. This, and posting a few charts, is simply a very tiny bit of giving back and a thank you.

EDIT: But you should save it with a .cpp extension. I had to upload as .txt to get it here...

nice day with NQ and of course the ym gimmee 123

Very quiet around here . . . : )

yep i guess noone traded today howd you do

keep cg in your prayers he aint doing so well

If only I hadn't bailed out of my first entry

FIGHT CG !!!! The power of mind can do wonders

Not sure, it will be useful to anyone, but as it is very quiet, here is my morning (SIM on NinjaTrader).

For silent “lost/loser” lurkers like me, why to even try trading NQ on Futures on such small time frames (I asked myself the question! I guess I am not the only one)?
After a little bit of “doing”, it is simply because at the 9:30am open it MOVES a lot and the cost is only 1T (a bit less actually) per trade. It feels that Forex doesn’t move compared to that, and the cost seems huge. 30s candles give you 120 "moving" candles to trade in the opening hour.
Moreover, 1 contract asked for only $500 as well after the 9:30am open (which can play HUGELY against you as well obviously!!!).

Anyway, back on track, first thanks to everyone in this thread, to Divergence obviously and more recently to ddaytrader challenging "makes you think" posting.

Another one to LookinGood, as I enjoyed a lot when he was posting his YM charts after each session with his 1:3 breakout retest trades. Looks simple and so obvious on the charts, but “surprisingly”... a lot more difficult for me to do it live :0)

Last one, I would really like to say a big thank you as well to erasmus66, as your no nonsense charts/trades are very appreciated. It is the visual “bulb” highlight of the tread (to me, everyone his own).

To make it crystal clear, I have plenty of bad days, and only a few good ones (today was a “flat” day.). All in SIM, as there is no point to go live to lose money (a lot of money, as it is $5 a tick!), as I am a “SIM” losing trader on NQ!
Do I feel it is getting better and better after each new session?
YES, but for the “silent lurkers” (aka losers like me ;0) if you have been trying your mind at trading for a little while, you know the feeling and the finishing line always seems soooooooooo accessible, but getting there is... quite challenging :0)

OK 6 trades today (11T SL and 25T TP, which after cost gives just a “pence” little more than 1:2):
T1: short on a very dodgy 123 back into the trend.
T2: short on a better 123 with “thrust” bar.
T3: long on a “LookinGood” thrust bar break out and retest.
T4: long on a small but clean looking 123, with thrust bar engulfing
T5: short on a 2b break followed by 123 and engulfing thrust bar (after entry, no bar closed below the entry bar... ddaytrader would probably say that if I hadn’t touched my stop, it would have been a +25T win instead of a -6T loss... and he would be right!)
T6: long on a very small 123 with a nice engulfing “kind of small thrust” bar. Just realized after that going short here would have made sense, as we were on the area of a possible retest of the 2b break (which it did!! Always so much easier AFTER the facts :0)

After the fact, T1 and T6 didn't really make sense (but could still have been winners!!).
T2 to T5 I like them, even the losers.
It is always obvious after the facts (oh YES a thrust bar and BAM it works!), but live is not the same obviously...

Anyway, enough of my useless rambling, have a good day everyone.
Tomorrow 9:30am is the meeting point in that thread :0)

Cheers,
J-F

nice post j f the key thing is your identifying the price action with more screen time improvement is sure to come