Trading the e mini nasdaq

I'm with you Erasmus. A bit slow.

Very interesting page 27 of this thread guys. I think there are less then 0.1% visitors that can't say they have never gone through this process of falling and getting up again.

Maybe you will laugh at it, but despite the fact that this is a great method of trading, I still don't understand how you guys deal with the big picture of the market (continuous uptrend). I think that most newcomers with a limited amount of trading experience can get into a big trouble even when using tight SL. There were many short side possibilities during last 2-3 weeks which ended up with +1 when traded like a "Pro", but on the other side if not, it could cost a trader a lot which then rises a tendency of over trading.
I have a 7 years of Futures trading experience, which of course means nothing, unless you are long term profitable. But even with this kind of experience I run many times into a bad trade with a very limited space for trade management. Simple because I have concentrated too much on discovering potencial trade entries. Yes, I have never been using this method for trading and no one can expect magical results after one month of learning process...

That's market pyschology at it's best. A price is just a price. If it is printing HH's, then we trade long. If it is printing LL's then we trade short.
The fear of the Short side is strong!

It may well be to do with this;

It's an almost universal issue. So decide & learn your entry setup, then focus on consistent execution and trade management. Trade in SIM till profitable on a weekly basis (WHY don't people do this !?).

Then - if you use the method described by Divergence - post some charts so we can all feel good that we're not the only ones making mistakes !

CG - I refuse to look at any of your charts without detailed wave counts, fibonacci levels and the all-important current phase of the moon...

Quick edit... sorry everyone, including my friend CG, end of my day and I'm clearly over-posting (but not over-trading ), time for a cup of tea... I made just a few ticks today...

very interesting and informing posts guys CG keep posting I don't mind we do take similar setups The setup is only part of the equation the important part at least for me is TRADE MANAGEMENT know when to hold and fold is very important. Think of trading this way did you every watch these game shows where they put a person in a container and there was money all over the floor then they turned on the fans and money was blowing all around the person and they had 30 seconds to accumulate as much as they can in 30 seconds trading is about accumulating. get 20 get 8 get 13 before you now it you got a bunch not today though so far....

Cheers H...

There is one obvious difference in our approach and that is stoploss placement. I have in the past always, placed it a tick above/below previous high/low (short/long). The very point at which the trade is proved to be wrong.

This is always exactly the same place that you change your target and bring limit down to +1, so we read things identically at that point. Knowing that the direction has just changed and the target is now loss limitation. For me, i am already taken out and usually at a cost of around 4/5 ticks (original risk),, whereas, many times, you get your +1...

This for me will be a major challenge to adjust to, but one, i realise that i simply must, because that very place where i have my stop is the big boys stop hunting ground, so often it reverses and gives the +1 get out of jail card. It's a work in progress, but old habits are so hard to break!

It also depends on the strength of the S/D zone, breaks out long (eg), retests - buy... fails and falls through, then retests zone from below (get out of jail card).

The other thing i need to do is buy myself one of them Vape thingies!

Of course I'm learning this method on SIM.

Getting a vape helps lol. The 15 tick stop 99% of time is below last swing sometimes 2 swings what I have observed is when a swing gets taken out against your trade it's not just you that has to recover but everyone else who entered there. That's the panic zone hence that's why I move target to +1 and when it gets in that -5 zone I am looking to cut my losses trade management is critical

That was a very useful and informative post CG - thanks.

Haha! Thx Turn... to be honest i don't know why i felt like opening up like that! I'm a trainwreck!!!

CG just grab a vape sit back and relax it's only trading not life threatening you already know how to trade just follow the rules and let the chips fall or be gathered

I'm actually tying up the sale of a business in UK which has been highly stressful and time consuming, so should be in a far better situation soon.

I take 'Holy Basil' and Moringa Oleifira' like it's going out of fashion to try to subdue my anxiety disorder! anyone else take anything similar? Frankincense is supposed to be pretty good, so a wise man once told me, anyway!

Overposting undertrading over here too.

I can speak only from my own experience, but I have gone through lots' of different charts and also products. The thing has been, almost all the best trades are visible in minute, range, tick, volume bars regardless of setting (range 14 and range 20 and vol 233 and 625). Point is, how many setups are you going to get and how big the stops are.

For beginner and intermediate (why not real pros) it's however best to just stick to one or two setups and one max two charts (the one that pleases your eye and you have gotten used to). H uses one chart and few setups. Sure, you can look at the entries from many different angles and they are about the same spot, but if one is just starting to get in to consistent winning mode it's better to have as little moving parts as possible. So stick to one, otherwise you will be wasting a lot of time of chasing the best entry, instead of trying to understand how markets usually move and perfecting your one good entry.

Hold and Fold is an art(?), it comes just with lots' and LOT'S of screentime and maybe even not then. I'd say that you need over one thousand CONCENTRATED hours to start seeing some structure and enough of different market conditions (again with one or max two different charttypes otherwise you start over and over again). Using great replaysoftware helps also to get lot's of setups in front of your eyes. Just beware that in replay you can speed things up, but that is not real trading, Scalping/trading this way means lot's of waiting and then fast action. You can't let setup slip by because you don't pay attention.

However like GC I also think, if someone relative new to trading comes over this thread he/she could slash the learning time of trading form thousands of hours to only hundreds of hours. Lucky you New Trader! Complete new trader will not save hours, while he/she will think, that there is better holy grail somewhere and keeps wandering and maybe comes back after many years (been there, done that). With this system you don't need exceptional hold/fold ability, with just the basics you can grab really good. Of course, better skills equals better results, but it's not absolutely needed in pretty good monthly earnings.

Daily dose learning H's method could be something like this (alter to suit your own situation - if you really want it you can squeeze in the hours): Replay for 1 hour, simtrading for 1-2 hours and then some recap what have you done.

After solid winning streak of at least one week in realtime SIM (trade as close as you would). No matter how hard you try SIM is not live, that's totally different thing. Anyway after at least one solid week of winning you could make few try's in live mode.. After those try's get back to sim and make another winning week. (I myself Sim traded 6 weeks my now basic setup before going live. After going live in the next few weeks I still made few SIM appearances, to get confidence. It's not setback, it's practice). Now after another solid winning SIM-week, make few live trades again and if everything feels ok, just continue live and start grabbing + say thanks to H.

If live scares you or you make mistakes, make the sim + few trades in live cycle again, at this point you already should know where the hard (usually psychological) parts are. If it's fear of entry, it should be easy to overcome with enough of sim entries. If it's holding the trade or bailing out too quickly when trade moves against you, stick to to the rules and don't move your stop (only be+1 move is allowed) or target and let it hit either one. If you can't wait price hit limit and you just make a market entry, try breathing/meditation to just being in ease while waiting. What's better thing, than waiting that trade coming to you.

If it's fear of missing out and you get in too late, go have an appointment with a therapist Just kidding, I have done that error too, trading this way is about patience and those pullbacks. I still have work to do in waiting, doesn't fit my personality that' well, but I have learned a lot and realized that one just has to learn to wait when the situation arises. Sometimes grabbing 10 ticks here and 8 there and the occassional 25 somewhere seems so little a day, but after few weeks or month it really starts to add up. My challenge is now to try to go for that 5 lot's first, it can be a long road but worth a try.

edit: typos

Tremendous post TD here's the thing do a little math if you make just 20 ticks a day 4 days a week (don't trade Wednesday who doesn't like a 4 day work week) that's 80 ticks or 320 a month trading 1 contract that's 1600 for month then increase to 2 contracts that's how you parlay profits into more profits now that 320 ticks is worth 3200 do it 1 more time and your making 4800 a month a nice living in my book

Thanks for the video Harold. Helps me to visualise 1-2-3 etc.

Easy, take longs only! There are enough opportunities.

However, you shouldn't fear of shorts. I have had better hitrate on shorts lately and they are also a bit faster than longs. But still, you could take only longs and don't worry about it.

I was going to post this on my own thread, but i really want to share how i determine a 'safe' trade, using EW.

This is obviously my own style which i have spent several years and thousands upon thousands of hours of study to get to where i am right now.

All i can say is - i do not want to clutter H's thread with my listings, which will seem too complicated to non EW'ers, however, it is relevant to this thread in so many ways. Let me explain and i do not see why it would offend anyone. Simply dismiss the chart, if you have no interest and move on to the next post... simples!

Here is a chart of the Dow from earlier;



The double top was the start of a corrective move (waves A&B). Now wave C must be in 5w, thus i have labelled it, so we can clearly see it in 5w. This is a huge clue. Therefore we have ABC. Next we print a 123, which triggers and subsequently the limit order a tick above the first subwave of the trigger leg (red circle) is filled.

That will look like a doji on a larger tick scale. Now, knowing that we just had a corrective ABC move, we know that as a minimum, we will print fresh highs. The result, a confident +20 (and should really have been more);



So, yes it is EW based, but look how similar the application is!

At the risk of incurring anyone's wrath, I'm curious if anyone uses Jigsaw www.jigsaw trading.com or footprint charts or the DOM and does it help?

I use volume profile for entries amongst other things as my 233 vol bars won't print properly after trying every setting possible. i.e. they give very poor entries.

The trade Divergence took today, it looked terrible on my chart, there was no entry just some sideways candles.