Call me Vidvad - I day trade futures

Yellow dotted lines = highest open and lowest open
thin dotted green line = low of day previous to new lowest open
thin red line = high of day
heavy dashed green line = today's open

Close to a HOLO short but price failed to trade through both the open of the day and the highest open. Given the time of day (11:30 AM NYSE time) it is highly unlikely I'll take another oil trade today.

HOLO short good for +50 ticks. It occurred outside of my personal trading window and I did not take it. Had it set up an hour earlier I'd have shorted CL at 79.27 or 79.36 on the second failed breakout to a new daily high.

His statement rings so true, "I realized in that moment that I had to learn to lose in order to win"

I envy yours skills for trading in renko with NQ, I'm far from being at your level! Quite far...

Thank you for reading the journal.

I started working with the method in June 2022. It has taken almost two years for me to get to this point. Every day is a learning day for me. I have invested many, many hours of watching price during the live open market, and hundreds more studying the charts and doing visual back tests. I feel very comfortable with the method now. My only problems now are those I create for myself when I force trades or let my discipline breakdown.

If this method resonates with you, it is definitely worth the time commitment it takes to get proficient with it.

Proficiency is really a function of understanding how the candles form and then having the faith to take to the trade and letting your money management rules take over.

NFP today so no trades for me until the news comes out and price action settles into a groove from signals may be taken, which usually takes 1 to 15 minutes after NFP. I never take a position before the news and the initial reaction. However, oftentimes the first set ups AFTER the initial reaction are the best set ups of the day.

I have to head out to take care of other responsibilities this morning, so no idea if I'll get any trades in at all. If I do trade, I'll post the charts later this afternoon when I get back to my office.

Going to call it a week here for me. Post NFP my first trade was 8:31:14 so a bit more than a minute after the news. I pyramided as price went higher. Then a few smaller scalps. Total net +185 ticks based on one contract per entry. I may trade multiples during the course of a swing, but I enter one at a time and only enter if price is moving in the direction of the trade, i.e. I average down into shorts and average up into longs. I do not add to a position that is showing me a loss. The short trades were taken above the 34 ema. However, the selling started at a failed breakout attempt above yesterday's high and last week's high. Actual resistance levels ALWAYS take precedence over indicators such as ema's.

NQ 21 renko

I was not trading the account I Use for the oil HOLO trades this morning as I was 100% focused on the NQ and the reaction post NFP.

However, oil did give another HOLO long entry and it did go for what would have been a +50 tick profit.

I continue to insist that the HOLO method is the simplest method available.

Pick on instrument. It doesn't have to be CL. It can be an index futures, a currency future, gold, etc. But just pick one market. Study the one hour chart. Follow the HOLO rules I copied from too slow in post #18 of this journal: Call me Vidvad - I day trade futures | Forex Factory

Do the 10 trade exercise. I suggest you do some back testing and find an instrument that routinely offers a 2:1 reward to risk ratio. I definitely suggest using a fixed take profit. I do not recommend using a too small fixed profit.

Oil's HOLO long went a bit past the +50 take profit level and has since reversed. Maybe it goes to new lows, maybe it goes to new highs. Who knows? Who cares? Take your profit and then settle in wait for the next set up. Use too slow's rules, though I suggest implementing the small changes that I suggested in post 18 of my journal.

Have a good weekend. If anyone has any questions, this is the time to post them here. I will respond later today and into the weekend.

CL HOLO second bit of the apple for 2 successful HOLO longs. Shouldawouldacoulda ... but today was not the day. My shoes are on and I am heading out the door. On a regular day where I had the whole morning to trade, I would have taken this second one.

I am waiting for things to settle down
And NFP today folks

NQ 21 brick renko with Heiken-Ashi applied showing swing lengths yesterday between 9:30 AM NYSE to 11:30 AM NYSE time. The swings are measured in points. To conver the swing into ticks you must divide by .25. For example, a 36.75 point swing is 147 ticks (36.75/.25 = 147).

Same NQ, 8:30 AM NFP announcement until 9:30 AM NYSE open.

HOLO CL chart: The yellow lines are each labeled as LO, "Lowest Open" as each marks the level of subsequently lower and lower H1 opens.

Price action gave three opportunities to go long at LO1, 2 of which were +50 tick profits, and one would have been a -25 tick loss, for a total of +75 ticks. That is $75 profit if you are trading MCL, the crude oil micro contract, and $750 profit if you are trading the full sixe CL futures contract.

LO2 through LO4 were not trades for my plan as each occurred after my trading window closed 12 noon NYSE time.

I'm recording this chart here because it is a good reminder for me that should a lowest open occur during my trading window that is at/near/below the previous days open, the reversals should be traded with caution, if at all. When price breaks below the previous day's low, that is a breakout. Most breakouts fail, but enough of them succeed to make for choppy trading range conditions while the market battles over whether to breakout or reverse.


Here is my CL five minute chart with the 8 ema and 21 ema, aka my "821" chart. When trading HOLO near breakout levels, which again, are yesterday's high and low and also the previous week's high and low, I will switch to the 821 chart. I'd wait for the 821 chart to flip into an uptrend, then I'd need price to break back above the previous day's low, and then I'd wait for the first pullback to at least the 8 ema while staying above yesterday's low, and I'd enter using a buy stop order above the high of the most recent M5 candle to touch the 8 ema. Yesterday, CL never recovered to a long status. Price briefly broke above yesterday's low, but it di so as CL entered the red NO TRADE ZONE, which starts at 2:30 PM Eastern time. This is when the old pit session closed for the day back when oil futures contracts were still traded in open outcry pits in NYC. The oil market still tends to go dead around that time most days. So if I enter a HOLO trade during my trading window, and that trade is still open when the red zone prints on my chart, I exit immediatley, regardless of the p/l.



In this case, the conditions

I've been doing a prop firm evaluation with TradeDay (hereafter TD) but put it on hold last week and traded my own account. This week, I'm going to trade the HOLO CL trades in the TradeDay account.

I am also going to attempt an evaluation with TakeProfitTrader (hereafter TPT), another "prop firm." I am going to do my NQ trades in that account this week.

I'll be using the Ninjatrader platform for the the TPT NQ trades.

I'll be using the Tradovate platform for the TD HOLO CL trades.

My trading window is the same as always:
7AM Eastern for HOLO until 12 noon.
8:30 AM Eastern until 11:30 AM for NQ.

I do not necessarily trade the window(s) until the end. If I hit $750+ in NQ profits and one +50 tick profit in CL I will probably stop trading for the day and go do other things.

NQ Method for the TPT prop evaluation.

This is the hourly CL chart on Tradovate, which is the platform on which I will be placing the CL trades.


This is the CL hourly chart I've been using and will continue to use to track set ups and manage stops, etc. This is Ninjatrader.


Ninjatrader is not perfect, but it is far better for me than Tradovate. Ninjatrader owns both platforms. But the original Ninjatrader is the better platform, imo.

It really resonates with me brother, I read you daily and seems an inspiration to get to that point. But it truly seems difficult to master.

With it, I have the problem that I don't diferénciate well when the candles get out of ranging period to start a trend. Like sometimes it looks like a setup that will go up or down breaking finally the range so I enter, but then just reverse to the range/consolation again. how do you diferenciate the choppy from the true impuse outside of it?

Happy Sunday!

I'd like to see a chart that marks your entries. It would probably be more helpful to you if I could remark on the etries you are making that you find problematic rather than having me trying to imagine where and when you are having difficulties.

Also, are you using a reasonable take profit? I may be wrong, but I think more retail traders fail because they are wining their exits. I use fixed profit targets on every trade. For the NQ, usually +40 to +60 ticks. For CL it is +50 ticks. Does the market offer more? Yes, very often it does. But the market also quite often hits those levels and then reverses, taking away all the profit and even the stop loss if I were allow it to do so.

Are you using Ninjatrader? Are you using the 34 ema in addition to the 8 ema band? Are you using the swing support and resistance tool? Are you watching for price action at yesterday's high and low? At last week's high and low?

If you're doing all that and still struggling, then the key thing for you to do to "fix" yourself is simply experience. And by "experience" I don't mean trading experience only, though that is certainly important. There is much to be gained simply from watching these candles form. Watch the market from 9:30 AM until 11:30 AM at least once or twice a week without trying to trade. Just watch it as though you are watching a movie in a theater. Don't be browsing the web, reading FF, planning what you're goin to eat for lunch or dinner. Intently watch how these cnaldes form, how price behaves at the swing levels, at the previous high and low points, at and near the ema's.

Here is the NQ from Friday, from 8:30 Am until 11:30 AM

Now, zoom in to different segments of that trading window.

Here is approoximately the first 15 to 20 minutes after the NYSE open. I placed a directional arrow at the candles I would have entered trades, and marked those either with a √ mark (+60 tick profit) or an X (-40 tick loss). Something of a trading range market, but using the ema's and the swing levels I think you can sort out what I used to make my decisions. These are, of course, hindsight. If you read my posts on Friday, I was done trading prior to the NYSE open, so I did not take these. I am, however, 100% certain that I would have taken these entries.


One caution I would add is that you aren't going to make these entries if you aren't watching your charts, finger on the mouse button to enter the market, and ready to act without hesitation when the signal candle closes.

Here is something else I did that helped me immensely. I did this sometime around the end of July/beginning of August of 2022, so about two months after I started trying to learn this method with the renko Heiken-Ashi candles. I did it again for two weeks last summer. For one week, I ONLY traded long signals. No matter how clear or how tempting a short trend may have been, I sat on my hands. I waited for and only traded long signals. Then, the following week, I only traded short signals. No matter how tasty and tempting a rally looked, I forced myself to sit on my hands for long signals that week and I only took the short signals.

I'll probably do it again for two weeks this coming summer. It builds discipline, it sharpens my sense of trend and trading range, and it really focused me on what I should be looking for in terms of what is a signal and when to enter. It also helped me to learn how to use the Support and Resistance levels printed by the swing indicator. For example, if price were in a down trend, and then it rallied back above all the ema's, but then double topped at a swing resistance level, then I would take a short trade if one started, even if price were still slightly above one or more ema's. Normally, in such a case, I would ONLY be looking for a pullback and then a long trade. But if there is S/R at or near and a double top, then I'll take what would look like a counter trend trade if I were only consulting the ema's, but is in fact a with trend continuation trade.

At this very moment, ironically, such a situation is occurring on the NQ.

I marked a down arrow where I would enter short if this were during my trading window. If this were my trading window, the current price action would have me waiting. The 34 ema is flat, and the 8 ema band is straddling the 34 ema. But with the double top at resistance, and the failed attempt to stay back above Friday's low, I'd take that as a short. I would not take this trade now as volume is VERY low and liquidity terrible. During my trading window, this would be more likely to get follow through to the short side. During periods of very low liquidity, this is a cra shoot. A pure gamble.

Someone accused me in another thread of gambling because I took a trade about a minute or two after CPI data was released. That was no gamble. We had huge volume, huge liquidity, and the institutions who move the market clearly ndicated with their volume where price was going next. But at this time of day, and especially on a Sunday evening, this is real gambling. During the candles in the charts I posted above, hundreds and sometimes thousands of contracts traded during those 21 renko candles. Tonight, many of these candles have 18, 40, etc contracts traded. I don't want to trade now because my set ups, which are very good odds during the NYSE session, have little to no edge during the early hours of the Globex session when very few contracts are trading;

In this case, that short would have been a -40 tick loss. Then we did get a long, breakout from the trading range, for +60 ticks.

I shaded the area between the swing resistance (dashed red line) and the swing support (dashed blue line); these S/R levels were plotted automatically by the swing indicator, which is free and built-in to Ninjatrader. I use the default settings. It really has been a simple "plug and play" indicator for me. If I were swinging this trade, the target would be the 18056 level, noted with the dashed green line above price, which is the level of the globex open today.

In addition to the breakout from a clear trading rnage, the 8 ema band are both above the 34 ema and the 34 ema has started to rise after a brief period of flatness.



Both of those trades would have been proverbial "no-brainers" for me if this had been 9:30 AM NYSE time or later, but before 11:30 AM NYSE time. (NYSE time = New York Stock Exchange Time.