Strat's PASR Long Term, Stress Free Trading

It might well be that seeing the PA particular patterns and acting on them is more important that solely the issue of a TFs.
There are different expectation regarding PT and trade duration according to the TF one uses as a primary TF.

Observing myself, however much I would like to say that I am calm and constant in my emotional/psycho state considering trading, and that I am in a constant and always in a state of well balanced readiness to risk management, to say that it would be a lie. But that is not bad, however it is tragic to deny it and avoid to recognise it. I have to go on with what is given, or what is there. There are days that I am ready to take and manage bigger risk, and there are days that I am less ready to do so, subjective, yes it is, especially for intra day trading just as profit/loss is objective. I rationalise risk factor for intra day differently that for trades that last days if not weeks. When there are difficult thought on my mind, I am less prepared for shorter TF risk management.

One of my friends used to be a well known trader in the City of London during 80ties early 90ties, a very pleasant man. He told me about one of his college who has been truly exceptionally profitable trader, in a very different league. However, he was able to trade only a small number of days, due to stress which affected his health and even physical appearance. My friend has left the private bank where he traded, went to college. trained as a pastor and served first in a very needy area in Bradford, and currently is in Leeds.
Few years ago I told him I am interested in trading, he asked me, why??? I told him that among other things I always have been interested in politics, and philosophy which acts as foundation for a variety of ideologies, including political ideology, and that economics are also playing part in it, since my interest in the markets. He did not say anything. Sometimes silence from a friend is as loud as a thunder.
I am still here, my interests have not changed, I trade, but trading is not the only activity I use my time for.
I am not trading for a firm, therefore do not have a manager over me, with more objective and ongoing assessments, so I must to be careful and realistic.
Have been semiretired for a while, fast approaching a further step in that direction. Cannot image what retirement is like, i will always do something.
Have been truly blessed with lovely wife, family and even with grandchildren, so there is no point to force myself to take risks which might be to big to bear.
Having been involved in many adventures and projects I always tried to be well prepared and give my good if not the best, trading included. I am reasonably well equipped and can display many charts at that same time, I have studiously red many books, like Strat participated in Delta Phenomenon years ago and a few like that, came as always to hit the reality that simple means simple.

Back to the Time Frames.
I basically initiate trade on any TF ( M1, M2, M5 ,M15, M30 for intraday)when I see the bar pattern which agrees with the strategy, however I manage the trade also on few TFs taking the Higher TF to carry more importance, weight. There is one constant feature for that intraday arrangement, a few displays that are in constant relation to the current PA and price levels/zones, these are Daily Pivots with mid points, and VWAP, which is always displayed in relation to PA alone on all TFs.
Fibonacci also displays that same zones on all TFs as it is drawn from the exact price levels, irrespective of TFs.
We all react to optics, even on that same TF zooming in and out changes the image upon which we try to make decision/s, so I am aware of that.
Can you imagine a pit trader 60 or so many years ago being so concerned whether he should trad M1, M15 of M30? Long time ago I read that some have used pivot points quickly and manually calculated, scrabbled on the back of their cigarettes packages. If they survived few months they lasted for years.
Jessie Livermore had even less to go by, often relying on old by our standard information, he must have seen something to make him take trades.
Can you imagine his answer regarding the question M1, M2 or M15 TFs?
So I take trades on whatever TF i am able to see them coming and than concentrate on managing them.
That does not mean that is the objective and ontological "the best", but often it is good enough or the subjective best (rarely so )that I can or am capable to do.

Please take the above as sharing some of my thoughts and experiences and not as telling others what to do or that I know more that many great contributors to this thread.

M1 EURO



M5 DOW


Today was a test of PRICE, PASR and PRICE STRUCTURE reading skills

First I use the Daily pivot itself as an important zone which is usually hit within few days, those that have not been reached are indicated on one of my charts, usually M30 or on higher TF, and I use that type of a "gap" as waiting to be filled. Usually clearly identified trend on M15 or M30 is enough to be a good aid, though occasionally it takes much longer. This is my observation on DOW only.

Very interesting 2be. I will have to check this out for myself on the Euro and Dow. Thank you. I was using the Daily Open in a similar way as SR but never thought to base a strategy around it. Do you take the Daily Open into consideration for your strategies?

Mid Daily Pivots points are of great use to me, often there are days that can be named mS2/Pivot, like last Monday, often the PA is contained in between the mid pivots levels, like mS1 to mR1 and so on. It is not a hard rule, but it causes me to take more attention of PA around these zones.
Particular bar formations are of paramount importance and when they happen around these pivot zones they provide kind of a confluence. They might be compared to a MA, but nothing is automated, every situation has to be confirmed by PA.

This sounds like it is identifying consolidation/ranging which would make it a great tool.

More often that not the PA at that time presents a low hanging fruit ready to be picked up. One has to make sure this fruit so nice and ready to be picked up is not the fruit from the forbidden tree.

I don't really understand this. Is this only during the London Session or in the US Session?

Some trades were made taking M1 and M2 PA which is less visible on M5 but the overall possible expectations to hit the D Pivot were fulfilled

Am I right in thinking that only happened during the London Session?

it remains to be seen if the gap to the last session close will be filled, last session close is indicated by the vertical white line.

Try as I might I could not find the vertical white line

First opening well below Last session close, PA went lower below S1 for a very short while then the ride up, and the dramatic move up in reaction to the FED.
Then a ride down, a b it like riding a wild pig, so grab what you can

I was totally lost on this probably due to being on M5! I could only justify trading the up move but the large candles on M5 made me chicken out. Unfortunately, my broker's data did not have that beautiful Shooting Star. Looking back now, had I still been trading M1, I would have caught some of those moves.

It is important to look not only at the number of points but what they represent in % move, dow went down just 0.7% and moved up about that same, so the span for the day has been contained in 1.5 - 1.6% or there about. Thinking in % will allow foe less emotions and a bit more stats, usually helpful to ride the market.

I used to do this using ATR but abandoned it in favour of pure PASR. Maybe I should add it back?

We often have an impossible and a faulty desire to see the face, (the future), but what we can see is the back, and that if we are attentive and focused. The past is important. Some would recognise this concept more that others.

100% agree. It reminds me of 'Yesterday is the Past, Today is the present - that is why it is called a Gift".

It might well be that seeing the PA particular patterns and acting on them is more important that solely the issue of a TFs.
There are different expectation regarding PT and trade duration according to the TF one uses as a primary TF.

Agree. I now fully recognise that I see and "feel" everything better on M1 plus my money management and risk is much easier.

Observing myself, however much I would like to say that I am calm and constant in my emotional/psycho state considering trading, and that I am in a constant and always in a state of well balanced readiness to risk management, to say that it would be a lie. But that is not bad, however it is tragic to deny it and avoid to recognise it. I have to go on with what is given, or what is there. There are days that I am ready to take and manage bigger risk, and there are days that I am less ready to do so, subjective, yes it is, especially for intra day trading just as profit/loss is objective.

I am the same (after all this time!)

One of my friends used to be a well known trader in the City of London during 80ties early 90ties, a very pleasant man. He told me about one of his college who has been truly exceptionally profitable trader, in a very different league. However, he was able to trade only a small number of days, due to stress which affected his health and even physical appearance.

We had a trader on here in the early days on the West Coast of Canada who made herself really ill by trading the London Session of Crude Oil - she since moved back to England.

Cannot image what retirement is like

Horrible! Fortunately, my trading fills some of the emptiness

Delta Phenomenon

I bought into that because of Welles Wilder, another Trading Wizard I had telecons with, but could never make profit with it.

There is one constant feature for that intraday arrangement, a few displays that are in constant relation to the current PA and price levels/zones, these are Daily Pivots with mid points, and VWAP, which is always displayed in relation to PA alone on all TFs.

I tried VWAP several times but could never find the "length" to make it consistently useful.

Fibonacci also displays that same zones on all TFs as it is drawn from the exact price levels, irrespective of TFs.

Fibonacci is my guide for all my PASR trading and never ceases to amaze me with its accuracy

So I take trades on whatever TF i am able to see them coming and than concentrate on managing them.
That does not mean that is the objective and ontological "the best", but often it is good enough or the subjective best (rarely so )that I can or am capable to do.

I only do this when M1 is trending and then M5 is my guide

Please take the above as sharing some of my thoughts and experiences and not as telling others what to do or that I know more that many great contributors to this thread

2be, ALL your posts are very valuable and am really glad you found this thread and hope that you can call it "home" to share all your experiences and insights.

Thank you for posting.

Thank you Strat for your post, I will make a more detailed post tomorrow.
It is really good to have your comments and observation.

Morning
On hindsight I saw that the best exit would have been abit higher, but not having the right state of mind has that effect on decision making.
I am in a bit of a drawdown this week by trading like a donkey.And the result is taking the trade out too quickly.
Overall though the direction is according to higher frames and price does me a favor to rally straight away at the open. BUT I should have followed my methodology of letting it run. The result is a fair amount of pips , although not what seemed to be available.

and a few minutes later price crossed above yesterdays high
This is the reality of trading though.

Hi Strat, many thanks for your post and making me explain some more.
Will do it in bits as I am being interrupted by life

Very interesting 2be. I will have to check this out for myself on the Euro and Dow. Thank you. I was using the Daily Open in a similar way as SR but never thought to base a strategy around it. Do you take the Daily Open into consideration for your strategies?

I use MT4 usually for charting only.
The indicator has been developed to draw any horizontal line with assigned name, with a possible label, colour ect.
Many years ago while still trading forex and indices, I have observed that US close is an important zone, so I have asked for that indicator to be coded.
It can be multiplied with all sorts of names, labels, zones.
Initially the drawn line had additional top and bottom lines drawn with a chose amount of pips (points), and if chosen these values can also be displayed in a created label, so I could easily establish market order with SL and PT, according to the displayed price levels, for cable I used 20 pips either way, so My SL was set to be just above 40 pips. These MOs were set up after the US session close, and if not triggered they automatically expired before London open, so I could assess the situation, and possibly establish a new MO.
ATM I use only the label, (white for US close) and a single horizontal white which continues until the following session close.
I have included also US open line for the benefit of this post, both of these lines coincide with another indicator programmed for me, which displays a candle which contains any time period it is set up to contain, in case of the DOW this candle contains the NYSE session, so the open and close line for that session are also the open and close levels of the candle body.

For the clarity of chart I only display the middle white line of the close.

Personally, I put more importance to the close, but have nothing to say against treating the open with that same importance. From my forex trading somehow I gave grown accustomed to focus more on the US close.


Below is just an example of the US close padded on both sides with 40 points. SL usually on the other opposite line thin white)



More often that not the PA at that time presents a low hanging fruit ready to be picked up. One has to make sure this fruit so nice and ready to be picked up is not the fruit from the forbidden tree.

I don't really understand this. Is this only during the London Session or in the US Session?

The forbitten tree is an analogy to the tree of knowledge ( of good and evil - profit or loss). Low hanging fruit appeals great and easy, but greed and fear alike might be leading us into self deception, whether overcomplicating the matter by dramatising and overthinking too much, or carelessly and thoughtlessly asking for trouble. ( that does not mean that small loss is always bad, or that profit is always good).

When I trade or set up MO after the session close, I usually recalibrate hem around Tokyo close and the London Open.
Another assessment is done well before the news/data release usually an hour before the US open.
https://www.forexfactory.com/calendar is one I use often

After that I trade US session, observing the open and where the PA is going, whether to follow PA or to be contrarian and fade the move when I see the Pinocchio or other bar formation/s. As always while in trade, SL is paramount, especially so in the initial stages.

First I use the Daily pivot itself as an important zone which is usually hit within few days, those that have not been reached are indicated on one of my charts, usually M30 or on higher TF, and I use that type of a "gap" as waiting to be filled. Usually clearly identified trend on M15 or M30 is enough to be a good aid, though occasionally it takes much longer. This is my observation on DOW only.

Daily Pivots with mid points are of good use to me.

In addition to that, the daily pivot alone is of interest to me, along the lines as explained in the video link below.
https://www.forexfactory.com/thread/...ow-with-missed

Some trades were made taking M1 and M2 PA which is less visible on M5 but the overall possible expectations to hit the D Pivot were fulfilled

Am I right in thinking that only happened during the London Session?

I use that throughout.
I tried to use M candles (like M5 candle with the display on M1 candles within it), still have them, but they mess the chart too much

Great posts. I use the day open on my chart (sometimes it coincides with the US close, I might start checking futures closing prices and draw lines manually). Other than that I find London open and NY open to be important levels, and the previous day's range (O.L.H.). That is just intraday since I never hold trades over many days.

I have to go for a while, but can post a chart displaying London open, no problem. I have got it on some charts, but not always displayed preserving chart clarity IMHO.
TBC, must go

It is important to look not only at the number of points but what they represent in % move, dow went down just 0.7% and moved up about that same, so the span for the day has been contained in 1.5 - 1.6% or there about. Thinking in % will allow foe less emotions and a bit more stats, usually helpful to ride the market.

I used to do this using ATR but abandoned it in favour of pure PASR. Maybe I should add it back?

I simply look at my watchlist displayed at least on one big monitor

% ges are well displayed
more to follow
Edit No: 1

possibly the meat of todays session has been traded, not interested in polishing the butchers hooks, so I am flat.
On H1 great marubozu (WRB) looks good.

DOW has done dance, it has opened with three gaps;
1st gap to the lasts session High
2nd gap to the last session close
3rd gap to the session pivot
All three gaps were filled pretty fast during the the current session. It says something about gaps.
Please remember that these gaps are different to the gaps created by the absence of any PA, just like a solid jump or fall.
These gaps are imposed on PA filled with candles by the grid made of various things like session close. D Pivot , a particular opening of close and I am aiming for these gaps to be filled, usually fast but sometime it takes a log time, since the Quarterly Futures trades as opposed to cash.

After many years of dealing with these gaps, especially gap to the last session close, probably the most used one, I am of the opinion that if the over all move is less than1 to 1.3% that move away has a much bigger chance to be completely filled within the current session (I mean session immediately following that last session close), and PA resumes as if the move away from that pervious session close has been just a market dance allowing strong hands to get good entries. That has happened today, and many, many times in the past. However helpful this insight, very much a part of indices trading, nothing is guaranteed and automatic, if it was we would kill the possibility to trade, which rewards risk management. We have to manful of and thankful for the liquidity providers, and make sure we do not become one.
Here we come to heuristic and statistical thinking and decision making.
I have asked my son for assistance, we got the las 20 years of, DOW daily data, OHLC NYSE sessions only, and organise it in excel so there is a possibility of statistics based approach. It took him minutes what I could not do, and while the data is imported into excel, iy is amazing what can be done. Excel can create its own graphs, pie-charts ect. The effect I hope might be a statistic based confirmation about the % likelihood of these gap closure within the immediately following session. For now based only on observation of others and mine I think the risk is worthy, but has to be well managed.

M1 EURO



Slow but orderly PA today as PRICE follows W1 PASR

Have put London open on DOW M5, I do not actively trade that, though I am aware that often London open is a start of active time

London open in Green Yellow both label and line

Hello everyone,in the last 2 days I just looked at the prices on M1 without making any trades, 10 hours a day. I also saw some trades that jumped out in front of me with a lot of confluence and I realized that I have a lot of patience and I'm just waiting for the sore thumbs, that's why I don't I have many trades in a month.

VWAP

There is one constant feature for that intraday arrangement, a few displays that are in constant relation to the current PA and price levels/zones, these are Daily Pivots with mid points, and VWAP, which is always displayed in relation to PA alone on all TFs.

I tried VWAP several times but could never find the "length" to make it consistently useful.

I use VWAP set to daily (1 day i suppose) with possibility to set for W or even M
I use it mainly as intra chart orientation devise.
there is another useful feature on ProTimeReal, when I draw a trendline on one chart that Tl also shows on other penned charts, so I do not need to switch between TFs, have them opened and displayed all the time

Hope that addresses some pointed points
Sorry it has been all about DOW.
There are some good and tradable dependencies between DOW, NASDQ, and DAX, which has two openings and two closing. (a bit confusing, but tradable) deficiencies)

we all know Strat love his guitars ...

enjoy while we trade.

hey guy, i have a question , i am actually new to the trading world, so while doing my resarsh i found out that when you trade with futures , if there is a high volatility in the market a trader might choose a shorter expiration date , is that true and if so why ?

while the DOW is messing around this morning , I was looking at the drop of USDJPY in the early morning.
This is what I came up with.

M1
and then some trend trading with possible exits (so easy on historical charts )

and here we go again an hour later


in the meantime on DOW I wanted to go short on this hedgehog but changed my mind. the potential might be 20-50pips and PA is not smooth to speak of.

(By the way I meant to short at the exact time I took the screenshot above. This PA for me is indicating lower prices.)

(Nth edit)
On the other hand why not

out for 30p at todays lows
(Nth +1 edit)
sorry that was far less than 20p. I need glasses.

ok the last post became too big . I managed a few more pips short to yesterdays lows more or less. And that's it for now. I will try my luck at NY open again.

Small steps after a drawdown. Getting to the right trading mentality slowly (but not easy when emotions accumulate after losses). I am still taking profits too quickly for my taste and the trades look ridiculous on hindsight when you compare to the whole move, which affects me psychologically even more.

My point for new traders is to think again and again VERY carefully if you really want to be doing this full time. I am doing it for some months now (well giving it a shot at least) and I can ASSURE you that you have absolutely no idea how difficult it is making decisions in real time. Some maybe can perform a lot better than I do, but I doubt it. I doubt most will keep going after 5-6 months of breakeven (which I am atm, not including the donkey style losses of this month of about 3% until a couple of days ago)

To finish the week with a win, just to remind myself I am not that inexperienced after all.
I wanted to enter right at the 200EMA (epsecially on the tiny hammer or whatever it is) but I was in LALA land and when I stopped day dreaming I entered long