MightyMouse

Thanks,I have a long term profile up. I don't act on the information

Trading is always much moire fun when things work out the way you hope. My entry took trivial heat. Any how I plan on holding over the weekend and adding if we get to certain levels below.

I'll short 4375 with a stop entry. The move up seems to have petered out as I was suspecting ( guessing ) it would. I feel it is worth the risk if it goes lower.

HA, you have to do something to take the edge off.

Black Monday was October 19th.

It sounds like you were making a market. If so, then you had a built in advantage/edge that few can enjoy. Risking only 2-3 % in that was would be foolish. Trading electronically removes that advantage. With certain types of trading, risking 2-3% without the market makers advantage could be disastrous. I do agree there are lots and lots of falsehoods.

I was really hoping this thread would get more responses.

Looks like, at the moment (48 hours) this was a drift back up on low volume. If 58.25 is the high, I'll give this a shot at 42.25 with a stop entry. If we spend a lot of time between 50-58, I take it short higher. Clearly the low volume up move, which has been the case since April 2009, can continue upwards to new highs so, in my case, I feel safer waiting for a confirmed directional change. With what has developed, I would rather miss some of the move than get pricked catching the knife.

I want trades that are going to have decent potential for the risk I am willing to take. 50 to 100 point moves taking into consideration adds is about right. But, there is no way to know if what it will be or if it will be anything at all. Sometimes, I end up being the fool that others try to trap. I suck at trading ES during the day timeframe so I do not do it unless there are very rare conditions like very high volatility, which really doesn't exist these days. I am patient, but I do not have the patience to trade ES during the day. I would rather trade other things or not trade at all. Know thyself.

All valid points. The most important aspect is direction. Direction is currently up. For the timeframe I would trade ( 1-10 days), I will still call it up as long as it remains over 1436, given the 1452 high. Volumewise, the turn at 1416 seemed to be a turn because there was a lack of sellers instead of an influx of buyers. We can say the same for the high at 1466, regarding a lack of buyers vs a preponderance of sellers which makes it also very likely that we may move upward until we find resistance, which we did not seem to find last time. When either of those events occur, I am suspicious that we will have to revisit the area to make certain that there is no longer supply or demand remaining. A move to 1416 from this where I would anticipate entering would give me an opportunity to make about 50 points. If I see the directional change, I'll give it a shot. I won't try to catch the knife and call a high. I also feel that we are least in the middle of the move up or maybe towards the end of it, in which case taking a long would be too short term for me to trade ES so I would rather wait or trade something else which will pay be for the risk I take.

I may be completely wrong on my read. I won't go short if we do not get a directional change. It may very well continue higher to higher highs. The current direction is certainly up. I wasn't suggesting that I would short 1458 by trying to pick a top and by no means was I calling a top. I just think that the low at 1416 didn't have the volume that would indicate that there was great support there. A decent move up usually comes off of decent support, indicating that supply has been removed; so, I think we might have to still go down. There are no free rides for the weak. Low volume moves without the capitulative volume make me very suspicious of the strength of a move in the opposite direction.

This looks like a BS move up. I suspect that it is moving up to about 1458 and will then move down significantly to below 1414, but it really all depends on what develops. The turn at 1416 lacked volume. The actionable trade is to take shorts starting at 1457 to the recent high around 1466. To begin shorting, I need to see a shorter term change in direction. I will short with small stops and reenter short if I get taken out. I don't mean that I will start shorting at 1457 and stay short until 1466. If there isn't a directional change, then I won't short at all. If there is a directional change and then it changes direction again, i will stop shorting and wait for a break out of the developing range.

It is purely subjective and leads to bad reads and losses, but when the read is good, you can make more than your fair share. As far as I am concerned, it is easier to trade if you can be more certain when and where traders will be willing to buy when you sell or sell when you buy back. Why would you buy if if is unclear that there will be buyers to buy your shares or contracts when you want to sell?

Thanks, I won't show you how to scale a tower without support ropes.

How the hell does he do this? is there a pattern that if done enough times, gets you to a stage that you can then use a pattern that gets you to a stage that you can then use a pattern that...? I suppose if that is the case, then it is a matter of keeping the cube properly positioned which he seems to have mastered.

Alibaba, As I stated, it is not scientific. I use price, time, volume when available, and delta if if it gives me an accurate depiction. The more information I have the better. I have expectations of where certain groups of traders will act and where they will react. When the conditions are right, I take advantage of the weak. I suggest you do your homework and practice.

Discipline is important. So is patience, confidence, aggression, and humility. You need to be patient to wait for the opportunity to appear, confident to take the trade each and every time, and disciplined to follow your rules. You also need to know how to be aggressive when the going is good and humble when you are wrong. Most of this develops when you learn that fear in the market is an illusion. Fear is your minds misinterpretation and assignment of emotion to the unfolding events.

Just about every tick has meaning to someone somewhere. I have seen the same when a trader anticipates a level from a continuous contract that, in fact, did not exist the previous time around. Yet, he''ll trade it and it works; reinforcing the thought that it was a valid level. Even though price may never have been there, if enough people give the level meaning, then it has meaning. We can say that a trend is price moving to a new level where enough traders on both sides find meaning. Meaning, they completely disagree on the future direction of price. When a price is trending, most people agree on the direction of price.

I agree on fixing the issues one at a time. I do think, however, that "if you miss the entry, you miss the trade" is true for some types of trades and not for others. Frequently, there are many opportunities to hop on or hop back on in the event of missing a trade or getting stopped out if the direction is the same. 2 important questions: 1. which way is the market trying to go, 2. how good a job is it doing trying top get there. If you stilll know the answers to these 2 questions, there is no reason why you can't get back in many instances. For some of the trades I do, I enter using stops. So, if I get stopped out and try to get back in a gain, it is, sometimes, at a much lower price. If I do get stopped out and then need to get in at a worse price, then all that really matters to me is if the direction is still the same. Generally, if only worse prices are available, then the direction is still the same. Just a point of debate.

I am assuming that you are discretionary trading. It sounds like you are having a problem with execution. You either are having a problem executing your plan or you simply haven't defined your plan and are winging it, thinking you are smarter than the market. Additionally, you might be trading with too much size and the swings bother you. You need to start with baby steps. Begin simply with a target and a stop and learn to stay in the trade no matter what. Right or wrong, winner or loser, you have got to learn to execute a simple set of rules. In the beginning it was helpful for me to walk away from the screens and deal with the fear away from the trade while I was in a trade. When you come back, either you had a winner, a loser or the market was up or down some from your entry. It helped me tame the fear I would feel and put it into perspective; it's an illusion. When the fear dulls, then add rules. Add them one at a time if you have too. If your trade size is too big, then trade smaller. It might mean that you will have to abandon the instrument you are trading if, for instance, one lot is still too much for you. I have been doing this for a while and if I traded too much size I would probably have the same issues that you have. It could very well be that your account is too small to make enough money and you might have to put off trading. You have to manage away your issues through properly executing rules and managing risk. .

...perhaps he'll have a cooking show. "Cooking Books with Jack".

Jesse livermore is the compilation of what someone feels he should have done because he did something else. Anyone one of us can write the same book correcting the old mistake, but correcting old mistakes leads to new mistakes that then need to be complied and written about. I found it incredibly difficult to swallow his bullshit about taking down the bucket shops. Trading in the early 1900's was largely unregulated and rumors and tips were shared like notes on which of the woman would put out. Most of what you will read is fantasy, generally written by trading junkies who can't make it trading. It may as well be in movie form with your favorite actor playing the lead role. A really fun book would be a "Where Are They Now" type book.

Wow! Deep! I will twist one up and read it again. Thanks.

Bull market corrections can occur because of profit taking. The likely cause for a correction is that there are far too many weak (long) traders who have entered the market at a late stage of the move. Weak traders are traders who do not have the ability to stay in a trade. These traders will sell quickly with any price move and therefore represent supply. Committed buyers who know what they are doing and want to buy more will not buy into supply. In fact, no one in their right mind would buy when supply exists. It is best to deal with supply at lower prices rather than at higher prices so price moves down until there is no more supply. It could be that the early longs are taking profits and buying back lower, or it could be short term professionals have identified supply and are shorting to take advantage of the weak longs, or it could be longs who want to remove supply to buy lower and take short term shorts with limit bids to buy back as prices fall or some combination herein. I am not sure you are confused.

Volume isn't an indicator like MACD, but it is an indicator that can be used nonetheless, as can price and time.