Monday, August 24, 2009

What's the risk?


It's often less than you think. Today, so far, is a scalpers market. Small movement means small risk. The market is always moving if your timeframe is small enough to see it. Tick charts have always made more sense to me than "minute" charts or other timed charts. I always aim to trade with the bigger trend in effect at that time. Today it is "up" and the intraday advance-decline (A-D) is greater than +1,000. So I am looking for an opportunity on the long side here. The main premise of this trade is the play off the S/R level shown. I spend a lot of time determining and drawing out these levels. My whole plan is based on trades at these levels. They are the "wall" I use as a backstop to protect my backside. Again. about everything I post here is an extension of the homework I do everyday. I collect and study screenshots in order to implant in my brain what setups look like. The only person I am teaching here is me. Others are welcome to read along if they want.

4 comments:

  1. The chart states 9534 is a S/R level drawn from last November. From your experience, how far back can you go to get a "relevant" S/R level? Also, what time-frame was used to get the 9534 level?

    Thanks for sharing!

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  2. I look at a 400 tick chart of the YM and look for major intraday pivots, gap closes, HOD's, LOD's, the tops and bottoms of consolidations, and where volume spikes play into any of those levels. The more touches the better, especially where volume is generated (I look at 1 min volume bars). Everyday I write up these levels and keep them on paper, so I can flip back and see what was going on that day. I have found these levels work all the time, no matter how far you go back, as long as they are still "virgin" levels. I am always "looking to the left" on the 400t to see what prior price action the current days market is getting ready to run into. But you can't just look at a current chart (for example) and "look to the left" to see what the prices are IF there has been a contract rollover or two since then. The prices I plot are the prices at that time the prior pivots etc were printed, which is where the old daily worksheets come in handy. I also keep some screenshots of old charts so I can see them visually. The key idea is to "look to the left" until you hit prior price action for the first time. Once a level is hit it is erased at the end of the day and new ones are drawn, based again on "looking to the left" for price action the market has not tested yet.

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  3. That's a nice post YM-Trader. Thanks a lot! It boost my self-learning in trading! I also like the post your partner, Ziad, posted months ago about "becoming successful trader". I am commending him too. These kind of comments are important to my learning. Thank you guys!

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  4. Thanks GD. I can assure we are all still learning. Trading is a school you can never graduate from because you will never "know it all". But you can get better and better. And that's good enough. Don't let what you don't know stop you from using what you DO know. The need to know "everything" is a fools game. Just aim to get a little bit better each day.

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