If you lost a little bit of money today, Relax; days like today are not the norm. If you lost a lot of money on the other hand, take tomorrow off and thoroughly go over your risk management plan, and your execution from today. Today's sell-off was triggered based on concerns over the employment situation and European debt. You could say it was a news induced panic sell-off. Despite the news and panic selling, most of the Key Support Levels still managed to provide a pause in the selling, and some rotation -- so even if you took a counter-trend Long at Key Support, you had plenty of time to move the stop to break-even and bail on the trade. We filled two open gaps today, 1070.50 and 1061.75. 1059.75 was identified as a Strong Support Level in Monday night's post.
If you learned any lesson today, or would like to share a thought, I encourage you to post in the Comments section.
ES 5-Minute Chart for 02/04/10
i was thinking of going long at that 1068 area on a double bottom test until i got your tweet 1070 good short. u kept me out of it but couldn't understand why long is out if not above 1069.75.
ReplyDeletepipercolt, check out the 30-min Volume Profile chart I posted earlier in the morning here: http://twitpic.com/11d1m3/full
ReplyDeleteYou can see how 1069-1069.75 was a Heavy Volume Area; in today's case, a heavy selling area. We also had the IB Low at 1070.25. Above 1069.75 was the minimum criteria to begin looking for Longs. Ideally, price would break through and remain above the IB Low in order to take Longs with confidence. Otherwise, Longs were scalps only and I did take a few.
I made my chart last night and when it broke O/S low at 1083, I had my finger on trigger but it moved away too fast and proceed to tag my levels all day similar to what you had. Very frustrating. My biggest obstacle right now is just taking the trade I see. It's totally mental and I wish I could overcome it as after tracking my "paper" trades the last 9 days, I would have been doing very well by taking the trades for real. Fear of loss is overcoming me right now.
ReplyDeleteAre you trading with money you can't afford to lose? Are you pre-defining you risk on each trade? If yes, then you must ACCEPT the risk -- not just in a bullsh*t way, where you think it might hit your stop. Deep down, really really accept the risk of losing that money and then enter the trade according to your plan. If the risk is pre-defined and accepted, you shouldn't be afraid of entering the trade. I know it's not easy! It's something I struggle with as well. For example, 1059.75 was a Support Level on my chart from earlier this week but I couldn't pull the trigger. I should have entered Long there. It happens to all of us, and I'm constantly working on this issue.
ReplyDeleteThanks, guys... you guys are reassuring me that I'm not the only one thinking these thoughts. I could have written every single comment above.
ReplyDeleteCheers... hap
You're definitely not alone Harry! These are issues every trader struggles with.
ReplyDeleteyes, hard to believe we we traded there at that 1070 within that first 60 min, and now can see that large volume node there. and don't worry about lordvortex, us newbies are big enough to make our own minds up.
ReplyDeleteYea, not worried about Vortex. I see his point, but everyone has to realize that Twitter/StockTwits is a free service and my priority is not to post every single trade as soon as I take it. When I initiate a trade, my focus is 100% on the trade because I expect my trades to work immediately, and if they don't, I get out with a minimal loss. No serious trader has time to explain each and every entry in detail, with charts and risk/reward, etc in real-time. Expecting that much info in real-time is unreasonable and I hope Vortex understands that.
ReplyDeletee
ReplyDeleteDo you manually enter the labels for Globex Low, 1st Hr low, etc... or is that programmed? Thx
Paul, I use the TPP Balance indicator which automatically plots those levels. You can check it out or buy it from http://www.tradepilotpro.com
ReplyDeleteThanks. Is TPP Balance the only product/indicator you license from tradepilot?
ReplyDeleteI use TPP Balance and Volume Trend Resettable.
ReplyDelete