Anekdoten, thanks for helping me form a mental picture of you trading. I have but a few questions left, if you can bear with me. Do you have a personal zeitgeist about the markets intraday? If I say the words: deterministic, chaotic, random, manipulated, do you relate to one? For example, I view the markets as totally manipulated, and when trading try to get inside the minds of the nebulous nefarious THEM to divine where they will take us next.
Anek, I am very interested in how you got started in trading full time. I can tell you that you are not the guy that would put you whole family in jeopardy. That's actually my biggest problem now. I strongly believe that I can make it in trading, but nothing is 100% in the world. I have a family with a young daughter, I have a decent job. I am not going to quit my job unless I am 100% convinced that I can make it. However, the problem is that it seems I am only good at intraday trading(paper tradng). Swing trading is just not for me(or probably I haven't found the key yet). What can I do? Freewilly
Free, Ok aside from: Risk Management Discipline Money Management High probability setups ....and the stuff everyone and their grandmother have heard of the difference between good trading and great trading is possibly the exit. This is something I'm still working on myself, probably takes decades to master this but in the long run your goal should be to land a few monster runs once in a while. You want a chunk of the trend but the bigger the chunk the better. Remember that calling exact ends is impossible so don't pay much attention to what you left on the table and get ready for the next play. Just like there should be a solid reason for entry there should be a solid reason for exit. First examine why you took the trade. If the trade happens to break major support or resistance, listen to how the market reacts to it, and depending on which side you are on determine if any possible panic or euphoria can take your play to new horizons. Use trendlines to guide you at all times, they keep you in perspective. Learn to identify what is a common slope and what's overextended. Do not use fixed value trailing stops but strategic ones. The exit is an art and unfortunately you asked, imho, the hardest question of all. Anek
Anekdoten Thank you for the answer, one more question if I may. Could you give me some guide lines as to what Support/Resistance. in this example if the market was trading above an old high, then trades back to it, would you call this Support? The same goes if the market was trading below an old low then the market trade to it, would you use this as Resistance? Further, do you use Daily time frames for this, or intraday or both? Thanks again Bill
Anek, I simply must make a comment about the chart you kindly posted. In the context of the shock and surprise element of a move, I am an S/R guy to the bone, and that move is only a shock if your chart doesn't already have on it the floor that price trampolined off of.
Bill, Support is simply an area that lifts price, and resistance one that pushes it. Think of it as rubber band, just because it was bent it does not mean it will break. When it does not break, what happens ? Well there is a possibility that it creates a momentum effect. Now, if it does breaks it will possibly hurt one of your two hands with the snap. Well, you could call one hand the bulls and the other the bears. One will definitely say, ouch. It's a very simple answer but don't think s/r should be over-analyzed. Anek
I'm sure it was a shock to those who had recently gone long and got stopped out only to find it rebound furiously for a decent amount of time. The high volume was not simply thin air. Anek
Hi Anek: I remember seeing you in action during a stint in the pure tick room, very impressive. How much does time frame matter? What I mean is do you think that you could achieve the same results in a higher time frame using the same setups? Thank you for being so generous to post, I have been trading for a long time and you have opened my eyes to some aspects I had not thought of. Good trading to you, Mvic
This thread is moving so fast I want to make sure you saw this stupid question. Or was your silence my answer? It is so lonely being the only stupid guy on ET!
M, I'm not a very good swing trader, mostly due to pscyhological deficiencies but most setups should work just fine if not better on bigger time frames. Just adjust car size appropriately to make up for the bigger stops. Thanks and good trading, Anek