Plan the Trade

The point about the above chart isn't a claim that it WILL drop. It is merely an observation at the moment, of a reaction at a fib retracement level of a prior 3w set. I would wait for a trend to establish itself before getting carried away.

The great thing though is that if you look at last night's post from the smaller tick chart of the NQ, as an example, if we do indeed print a double abc set (WXY move), it is corrective and thus, we will go on to print fresh highs later - thus the top is NOT in for the Dow, indeed, with a larger pullback, we will likely have a long way to go upwards yet...

That is all for the future to tell, but the drop thus far certainly looks like an ABC move...

This is what i'm talking about, using the daily now instead of hourly;



I think if it were to print and a 123 occurs off of 20k, a wall of money will return back into the market very quickly...

My Dax Weekly chart from mid November 2015 now looking canny;



and today;



Of course, maybe indicated 'A' was the complete ABC, thus it's onwards towards 20K )

very nice call!.. Did you take account in the FOMC news before doing this analysis? thanks.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

Hey CG I have been trading tpo charts and literally killing it

Nice one Harold!

I have now fallen head over heels in love with the NQ Futures using Sierra charts.
I might look into tpo at some stage, but simply, combining EW view with pullbacks is working really well for me.
I've yet to have a losing day in 3 weeks and yesterday was a dream. The best thing is being able to recover from one or even two losing trades straight off.

Still lots to improve on, i feel... when to grab and when to let a position run, in particular, but hey... a profit is a profit!

Might give you a shout sometime in near future to chat about tpo, see if i can use it to my advantage too.

Best wishes

H,

Can you send me a screenshot of todays first hour including TPO please?

Also, how is the POC calculated? i mean, on what time scale? I don't really understand how it updates itself as more volume and thus bars are printed etc... Is it purely from previous days data? or does it calculate whatever information that you have on the screen at a given time etc ie; if you zoom in and have less candlesticks on your screen, does it alter the POC calculations to suit?

hey CG I did a few changes in setting using 68% using VH AND VL and POC based on volume because I can see the other nodes with my eyes magenta is volume poc of control just below you see tpo poc just above VL I use these levels of entry and for targets stops always 10 target minimum is 20 but if target is further away i move it to it

I've got the basic idea, but need to look into this in more detail, me thinks... I was thinking at first, with my current results, 'if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it', but i do like the added info this gives... I will be picking your brains about it more in a couple of weeks.

Nice trading btw! always an inspiration!

It works in CHOPPY markets in fair value here's yesterday's incredible day

I saw that one earlier today my friend. Very impressive. I had to wait until after that chop for my pickings yesterday.

I love the POC reactions though, which is what got me thinking.

Will get settled doing what i'm doing now (just starting to get used to the Q's movements, times and volumes etc at the mo... and the much later time of day for my trading session - it takes a while to train your mind to be in the right mental state so late on, when i have always started trading straight after breakfast for years now!) and see if i reckon i need to go down your road. I reckon i will need your help setting it all up...

To be fair, i'm really enjoying my trading nowadays, which results in the stress side of things dissipating. The more that you ebb and flow just reacting to what you see, the more it works, which proves that 'fear' really is/was the biggest hurdle of all to overcome...

To be honest, i find around this time of the day, when the volumes have died down, it is easy to spot reaction points and i keep scalping +8's/+12's fairly regularly - they soon add up to a decent total and the odd time you get one wrong, provided that you pick your entries right, it is relatively easy to get back out of the position for minimal damage...

Interesting. This sounds like a winning strategy.

What do you think of the cable moving forward? More room for upside or?

I think USD is still bearish, which might leave some more room to upside for cable. Any decent dips below 1.2488 could be real buying opportunities.

Yep, despite my handle, i don't tend to follow anything other than the Nas anymore, however, i did have a peek at Cable about a week or so ago and i have 130+ earmarked, (but not in a straight line of course). Haven't got an up to date chart unfortunately.

I just found that longer term trading was not for me. Futures trading and in particular the NQ, just seems easy to read, (well, to me at least and thx to Harold for that nugget!), as i said above, great if my EW view sees me get into a decent move of 30+, but i find it is possible to rack up the points by grabbing. I never realised i would do so, but i am now even finding that pure candle action gives a huge clue as to whether it is reacting at a point i was expecting.. so as opposed to having a mechanical plan, i find that i am simply placing orders as i see fit, at previous S/D zones if and when they 'feel' legit, so long as they are close to a failure point, (if broken - it's time to get out), thus keeping risk minimal all of the time...

I used to dabble with ES mini, but it didn't work well for me. Would be great to hear your input on the Nasdaq.

Well, here's the thing about longer term trades vs scalping...

My hourly Nasdaq chart as of last week;



and current 1 hour;



It was close, but an 'irregular 'b' wave within the 4th made a fresh high and that always causes uncertainty. After 5 waves are complete we start to correct them. Look at how many crossovers occur in this phase vs the impulse count where the two main peak/troughs do not cross (waves 1&4).

I noted the last likely X wave reacting at prior S/D level, with fresh low (likely wave 'a' of next set) making a slight fresh low. But here's the thing - how do you know how deep the ensuing 'b' wave will be? Ok here, it reacted at 5,400 which was enough resistance, but the risks in regards to 'ticks' are considerable and there is always that element of doubt, no matter how good your labelling abilities are...

Not only that, but look at how many deep pullbacks there are during the corrective chop! Psychologically, to see a really nice profit keep getting wiped out, is devastating and very likely to trigger the usual human result of closing your position for BE or a loss instead of holding and ignoring the 'noise'...

Am i confident of the call that current action is corrective, thus soon we will return to fresh highs? reasonably... enough to take a long trade? maybe - if i was trading longer term, but i could be wrong and thus risk has to be determined with stoploss below last trough (start of indicated wave 1)... and that would have taken a week to produce one set-up.

Now compare this to the scalping approach;



So that is multiple set-ups within a couple of hours of trading. The risk should be comparable to the hourly set-up above in each case.



Trend is down, but when the elastic appears stretched as is the case above, i will put my stoploss a tick above previous LH, with risks of 3&5 it is worthwhile doing so, as using the set 15 tick stop at this stage could see PA reverse quickly (there was a rush of volume as it was near close). Just by grabbing in each case, the daily total starts to look impressive. Get in - Get out!

Sometimes you gotta go old-school!

Old school is nice but how about new school