Call me Vidvad - I day trade futures

Today's ES HOLO chart

Hi there again

As part of understanding your reasoning, may you tell me why you have/would not take the trades that I mark ( the ones I would have taken, and probably end with more losses according to my actual reasoning and experience).

My reasoning:
1. It´s in a clear uptrend, I have see that when it form 1 green candle, doji and another green candle, lot of times it´s a continuation in early trends.

2. Trend looks strong, seems like a retracement and a good probability of going up. ( it didn´t...).

3. A recent change to the downtrend, third attempt of retracement. ( I got from what you say that thirds attempt have low probabilities, so this one would be a risky as I understand.)

4.It´s breaking a resistance to the upside, EMA´s pointing up, and above 34 ema.

5. A retracement to the EMAS, price action above 34 EMA, I see you tried on the second attempt of retracement and failed. Why not on the first? Because of not touching the 34 EMA?

6. Strong movement to the upside, first retracement.

7. Strong movement to the downside, second try of retracement, but would be a lost because it continued up a bit before going down again. But you entered succesfully on the first little retracement to the 8 EMA a bit earlier.

As you see, two different ways of interpreting the charts and reasoning. Mines a looser haha! And yours a completely good bet in the right side of market.

Thank you!

1) Before 8:30 AM. I do trade before 8:30, however I usually wait for after 8:30 to trade NQ if there is news. I think that would be a fine entry, and there might be days when I would give in to temptation and trade it. But when I do my signal review, I limit it to signals between 8:30 AM Eastern and 3:45 PM Eastern (15 minutes before the NYSE close).

2) I should mark that as a set up, but it was not a great one for the same reason 5 & 7 would not have been set ups at all. The only reason I would call it a set up is the timing of it: It was so close to the open that volatility could have made the market run higher. Instead, it would have been a loss. However, in hindsight, I'd call that a set up. I checked my Apex account and I show an entry there on the chart, but it is not listed in my order blotter. I think the chart marker is an error. At any rate, I'd say that could be a set up I would take 9/10's AT THAT TIME of day.

3) Do you see that three little push pattern the price made into the lows? When I see that behavior, I see bears struggling when they shouldn't be struggling. I would be more inclined to fade the down and buy it than I would to sell it there.

4) Above ema but a flat ema. I would have bought the pullback of that swing had there been a trigger. There was not.

5) I was watching at that time and the entry trigger price would have been 18665.75 (or very close to it) which is the same price as the swing high. I don't want to be someone else's exit liquidity. There must be a few points at least between the entry and the resistance to make it worth the risk. Compare to the entry I did mark which would have allowed 5 or 6 points. That 5 - 6 points and how price acts after entry can be the difference between taking a full 10-point loss or being able to react and maybe take half the loss.

6) I generally won't take a trade between 12 noon Eastern and 1:00 PM Eastern. It's the lunch hour in NY, and no matter what we retail people do, the traders who move the money are usually not too active during that time unless the market has been ripping one way or the other from the open. Any other time, I'd have marked that as a trade.

7) Same reason as #5, using the bar status indicator, the price I'd have had to set a sell stop would have been at or very near the swing low itself.


For #5 and #& compare where those trades would have been entered relative to nearby swing resist/support and the one I noted where the entry would have been 18576.50.

Yesterday I said my plan was to trade 2 NQ's per entry until I had accumulated $3K in profits in my funded account. That is an error.

I will trade 2 contracts per entry until the account has accumulated $8000 in net profits. If at any time my "balance" falls to within $2500 of liquidation, I will reduce size to 1 NQ. Within $1250 of liquidation, I will switch to 1 MNQ until back above $2000.

I will still do some scaling, i.e. for long trades, I sometimes ADD contracts as price goes higher toward my take profit order. For short trades, I sometimes add contracts as price moves lower toward my take profit order.

I never ADD to an already losing position. That means I do not average down when long, or average up when short. If I get into a position and it shows me a loss, I take my loss without adding to it.

If I reach $8000 in accumulated profits in my funded account, I will always leave at least $8000 in net profits in the account until I decide to close the account.

Apex has no scaling rule. This means I can trade the full 17 contract clip allowed by the account whenever I want.

I have a scaling plan myself that I have put together in Excel. It includes withdrawals of $2750 twice per month starting on April 15 and continuing through the end of June.

If I haven't blown the account AND I am on track according to my scaling plan, I should be able to take a sizable withdrawal in July. Apex has a terrible payout structure that limits payouts for the first three months.

My scaling plan starts with 2 NQ contracts at a clip until the account "balance" is > $158,000 ($150,000 nominal starting balance + $8000 in net profits).
Upon reaching that level, the scaling plan fairly quickly will increase until I have accumulated $56,215 in net profits, at which time and continuing so long as the balance is in excess of that amount, I'll be trading the full 17 contract size allowed by the account.

I know many people use multiple accounts to reach large payouts, especially with Apex.

I'm going to try to achieve big payouts eventually with just one funded account.

My weakness has always been hesitancy to trade in size. I feel my trading plan is solid. My purpose in choosing at this time to try the prop firm route is to try to overcome my phobia about trading size in an environment where the risk is minimal (my cost to acquire this account is very small) and yet the risk is nonetheless real (I could blow the account and have to start over with a new evaluation account).

My trade day eval has been slow and steady. I have neglected it somewhat as I was using Take Profit Trader and then Apex to trade the NQ.

For the Trade Day account, I will be trading CL and/or ES HOLO trades only. I believe that Trade Day will be the better "home" for me eventually is I can pass funding with them. However, the Apex funded account and the NQ is going to be my main focus for the coming weeks and months.

If I blow the Apex account, I will do another eval, though if there is not a "sale" available at that time, I will wait until I can get 80% or more off the listed price.

I don't plan on blowing this account; however, the trailing drawdown is problematic until I accumulate at least $5100 in net profits, at which time the auto liquidation level will be locked at $150,100, and thus it will be a true $5000 end of day drawdown. The problem with the intraday drawdown is that it really is a rule thaat is antithetical to the way I trade. Those who say "it teaches you to take profits" don't understand the importance of having a fixed take profit has been to my trading. The trailing intraday drawdown has me on edge during a trade. Many times, I've had trades go up $600, then pullback to +$200, before going to my +$610 profit target. Now, so long as I have to contend with this intraday drawdown rule, I'm constantly fretting over whether I should take my profits early.

If I blow this account, it will be because of that intraday drawdown. I'm working hard not to let that happen.

Another element to my traing of the renko H-A method is that I keep a five-minute chart open as well with an 8 ema and 21 ema on it. Everytime the ema's cross, I get a loud unpleasant adible alert.

When I start hearing that alert over and over and over again I know that the conditions are not favorable to catching a wave.

Today, the ema's crossed 8 or 9 times in between 10:05 and 11:40 AM Eastern.

As Kenny Rogers sang, "you have to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, know when to run."

The five-minute ema's are often what I am using to decide whether to take a trade on the renko or not, to hold for my take profit or not, to tighten my stop loss or not.

Don't get me wrong, the renko H-A is my main chart. But the 5 minute tells me what type of neighborhood I am in and whether I should feel safe or I should skedaddle.

The little diamonds in the circled section of the graph each represent the ema's crossing one another.

CL early morning HOLO short for +25 ticks. Had a doctor's appointment this morning and entered this before leaving the house. +25 tick take profit just below last week's high and only used a -5 tick stop loss, 1 tick above the then high of day.

I finally have all the prop accounts and my own account available to trade in the ninjatrader platform.

New HOLO short opportunity on CL. I am done with this account for this week and I am not taking this trade. Had I Not had the earlier opportunity, I would be short CL now.

Beauty of a HOLO long on the ES this morning.

I do not trade HOLO set ups on the NQ as I use NQ for the renko HA method, but similar to ES this morning, HOLO long. At yesterday's low and last week's high. Do we reverse Wednesday's fed rally or continue higher? Or, maybe, we just sit and spin for another narrow range consolidation day.

Waiting ...

It's up to the market now ...

Stop loss automatically moved to +5 ticks

+5 ticks

I might be calling it a day. The market is ranging back and forth across yesterday's low with neither side able to take control for an extended swing as of yet. And since I was at the doctor this morning, I didn't really get to watch the premarket as I usuaally do, and I feel somewhat "unprepared" for the day.

So close to the take profit on that last trade, but the stop moving to +5 ticks once the profit was +40 ticks has been a good rule by and large. In this case it saved me a loss.

The second HOLO CL short reached the +50 tick target for anyone who took the trade. I did not.

HOLO long MES

Hi Vidvad...how do you find the HOLO for CL compares to your experience of HOLO for MES? Thanks

I just started working HOLO on the ES/MES which is why I am trading it with just one micro at a time. CL I am supremely confident that HOLO is, at least for now, a solid strat if applied regularly.

If you view this PA as a channel, then I'd suggest shorts with a solid break BELOW, and longs on a solid break ABOVE.