[jonbig04]

[jonbig04]

[jonbig04]

Oops, in that last chart, I meant to say that I CAN'T chalk that trade up to bad luck, not that I can. Anyways, that particular error won't happen again. Getting stopped to the tick sucks bad. There's no need to over-analyze this particular trade.I paid too much attention to the line on my chart and my stop was a tick smaller than it should have been. Simple fixes, but it did get me thinking about the flip tests in general.

Perhaps I should draw my own lines in real time. Maybe the automatically plotting ones aren't helping. This would also mean more entry opportunities because there could be multiple flips to play during the day, I could also have stricter criteria (see below) on those levels. This isn't something I think I can sort out before tomorrow morn, but it could potentially look something like this:

Remove the autoplotting ORH and ORL. Plot them myself (which 90% of the time will just be a formality), plot any other intraday S/R levels that cause a minimum reactionary bounce and play those flips as well (only, of course when all the other criteria are met-major area, reversal formation etc). I could have stricter criteria on the flips themselves regarding the bounce and breakout leading up to the flip. There's no way to know for sure whether a level has flipped or not, before it does. But the criteria I'm thinking of I like to call the "daylight" criteria.




Just an idea.

[atto]

What about something like this, which happens more often: A R area is discovered, and is later tested and becomes S, and then breaks. Do you trade the flip, even though it may have been a while since test? For purposes of this exercise, pretend this chart represents an hour, one day, and one week. How do you trade it?

[jonbig04]

Thanks atto, I was hoping you would check out my chart. First I want to clarify something that may be puzzling to people following along, and will make it easier to answer your question. My rules have 3 parts. This is how I like to think of it.

1. The first is directionary (lol I made that word up). Since my targets are usually around 10ES this part of my rules is what, hopefully, tell me when the market may move 10 points and which direction that will be in. This consists of analyzing larger time frames (100k cvb, hourly, 30kcvb etc) and first determining trend. Then determining major levels of S/R. The big levels, the one that always have some kind of influence. Once that is done I wait for price to retrace back to a major level on a large TF. Assuming the trend is down (like now), on a smaller TF like a 1min, this will look like a rally. For me its just a PB. I wait for the rally to reach a major area of S/R, then I switch to a small TF. There I wait for a reversal formation of some type usually a DB or DT. When it confirms, then I enter. This is what I believe will tell me which way price is going to go (at least 10) and when its going to do it, but its only half the battle.

2. The second part is what I call entry (but you may not call it that). This is where I try to determine where I can enter on the trend that just developed that day (after the reversal). This I do by entering on the flips. As of right now the flips I can enter on are ORH, ORL, major levels, and midpoints of patterns. This part of my rules determines where my entry will be in the trend. This is the part I am thinking about modifying slightly to include more flips and perhaps more guidelines on those flips (as reversal formations don't happen all the time, when they do I shouldn't be missing an entry just because ORH didn't flip but some other level did).

3. Surgical entry. This is the part that ideally I find even more protection for my stop (and the part I dropped the ball on friday). Here I want to find out where exactly, to the tick, the level was flipped to and try to get a surgical an entry as possible. A lot of times I watch a specific point (to the tick) wait for the vol spike that always happens when the level breaks and see if I can figure out if its a break out or a stop run/exhaustion. Still need work on this section. Right now I'm waiting for a little confirmation before entering. I guess I will learn what works as I go.


Having my rules split up like this help me determine which part I'm screwing up. For example, friday #1 was right, #2 was right, but I screwed up #3. So when I go to look at what went wrong, I know to look at section 3 of my rules because there other sections did their jobs.


I said all that so I could answer Atto's question.

First thing that comes to my mind is that looks like a double top. If the two peaks were at a major level on a time frame of say 1 min and the larger TF was in a down trend, I would absolutely be shorting the next test as I would see it as a hump retest.

If that chart was a large TF (say hourly) then I would look for a reversal confirmation on the small TF chart (1min or 10,000cvb). If that happened then I would be looking to enter on some sort of flip after the reversal confirmation confirmed.

If this was on the 5 sec (assuming all other criteria have been met) then I would be waiting for a vol spike at that level and then some hesitation before entering the short.

[jonbig04]

I said I would have set BE rules a week ago. I have them now. BE at +5. I've been toying around with it and I simply can't move it at +2 or +1 without reentering. If you're going to re-enter, why get stopped in the first place? The exception would be if you had a really bad entry (in which case you could be glad to be out to get an improved price), which won't happen to me because my stop is tight enough to where a slightly bad entry gets me stopped anyway.

[jonbig04]

Flipasaurus Rex

[jonbig04]

My ES pivots or S/R levels or whatever you want to call them:

926
919.25
909
898
885.50 (big one)
876.5
866.5
841