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I just finished "Trading in the Zone" by Douglas. Great book on the mental aspect of trading.

I am bearish as well. The $1200 range is where I am stalking too.

If you are not consistently profitable after 5 years, then find something else to do. And make sure that you don't try to trade cold turkey...that delays progress due to the money psychology. IMO

I hope it never comes to that!

Have you found any success in divergences between markets? Such as between gold and silver?

I think you posted in the wrong thread.

I trade for 90 minutes. After that, my focus declines and I would give back my winnings. So now I turn off my computer after 90 minutes and enjoy the day.

Learn how to read charts. Look for who is in control. Then trade what you see.

Short term for scalping

The only platform that I know of that tells you where you are in line for a limit order is X-Trader. It is expensive but would likely tell you how many orders are pulled vs. real as price hits your entry... The market that has the most fake orders is likely to fill you. Not sure if that helps, but...

On the note of testosterone and trading: a 2009 study says if your ring finger is LONGER than your index finger, you need to be a trader! If your ring finger’s length is LONGER than your index finger, trading is for you. The findings are in the January 2009 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In a study by John M. Coates: “I used to run a trading desk on Wall Street. During that time I had noticed — during the dot-com bubble — that the traders were displaying almost clinical symptoms of mania. They were delusional, euphoric, had a diminished need for sleep, and displayed feelings of overconfidence. You couldn’t get them to shut up or put a normal sentence together. And I began to think that something physiological was going on.” “So I left Wall Street, in large part to look into the hypothesis that testosterone was driving trader behavior during the bull market… “We’re the first study to look at this, but the results are just unbelievably strong. Economics generally has overlooked the body. But this shows that hormones actually play a huge role in the market, that the body and mind work together and that the body influences economic life.” The results reportedly found a high prenatal testosterone exposure when your fourth finger (ring finger) has a greater length than your second finger (index finger).

When Steve Nison wrote his Candlestick book, I believe he was using them for daily candles. I am not sure how reliable they are for shorter timeframes, but for the daily bars, the open and close actually mean something.

Or try ImageShack. It's free and you can post the chart directly into the post by clicking "Insert Image" (the little picture above where you type the message).

No music. Too distracting.

Thank you. One thing I would add is that they always "work" and they don't always "work" depending on your target and stop. An infinite stop and a small target will surely "work" on a particular trade regardless of method. Just like a infinite target and small stop will never "work" on a particular trade. But in the long run, you will see your results in black and white. P/L is the true judge in this game.

mitsubishi, I agree with that. And a penalty for lack of quality...

For example, look at CL today. Yesterday's high (resistance?) was 108.09. Market shot right through it 3:19 AM (PST) went to 108.58. Then at 6:26 AM (PST) it blasted right through 108.09 (resistance turned support??) to 107.83. At 6:35 AM (PST) 108.09 held and chopped until it blasted through 108.09 (resistance?) again at 6:46 AM (PST) and chopped until 8:06 AM (PST) where it shot up to 108.64. So I'm not sure that there is an edge in support and resistance. Of course it's only one day, but you get the point. No edge. IMHO. But if you have a method that works for S/R, then you are the man!!

Pauca, What he taught me is that sometimes they work and sometimes they don't work. Since there is no real edge to S/R, then don't use them. He teaches the Law of Charts and uses that as the basis for his trading methods. Hope that helps. Thank you. Tony

Yes! One of my favorite books by Joe Ross.

I use Ultimate Trade Analyzer from a company called NetPicks. Been using it for a couple of years and I think it's great. There are a lot of different areas for reviewing the trades, such as time of day wins and losses to expectancy and stats. Tony

For the trade at the weekly high/low, are you buying the high for a momentum trade, or selling the high for a counter move? Does it matter which market it is? CL vs. TF vs. ES? Thank you.

BlueHorsseshoe, I sent you a private message.

I keep both an electronic journal which tracks the trades, setup types, time of day, day of week, and runs analysis. In addition, I keep a handwritten journal where I write down how I feel before, during, and after a trade (assuming the trade is long enough that I can). Funny thing is, the times I am most afraid or nervous are usually the quickest winners. Now I start to want to be scared instead of confident before getting filled. (This only applies on a backtested, forward tested, positive expectation method that I have been trading).

For day trading, Joe teaches to scalp. 10 ticks is a good scalp amount in CL.

BlueHorseshoe, Attached is the tick chart you wanted to see. I wait for the bar to close and then I place a limit order in my DOM. When placing this resting order at the open of the next bar, my order sits on the DOM until price hits my entry. I am then filled or not. If I am filled, then I am in the trade. Since I use a limit order instead of a market order, there is no slippage. As you can see, I was filled at 106.13 which was 7 seconds after the open of that 5 minute bar that you saw in the other chart. On this trade, I traded a 10 lot. The red arrows are my short contracts at 106.13. Looks like price went against me initially and then proceeded to hit my target at 106.03 for +10 ticks. I hope that answers any questions you might have. Thank you. Tony