For trades fading key levels which do you use, considering a fixed Time-Frame? Likely a fuzzy poll but I would like to hear from those that ARE successful and/or have back-tested enough to arrive at useful conclusions. I trade Index Futures-- day swing, 10m chart looking for around 50% daily ATR. Limit-in. Pros: Reduces execution jitters.. set and forget. Improves risk/reward as targets easier to reach. Cons: Erratic markets could eat you alive. Properly locating key levels sometimes a dark art.. and even then.. Stop-in on Reverse Confirmation. Pros: "Perceived" Comfort.. which may not mean good trading. Cons: Requires more monitoring and quick hands (or parked orders) once bars close Erratic markets could eat you alive..i.e. Outside bars Risk/reward degrades especially with large reverse bars.. actually excluding trades. Overall I have always been the confirmation type but lately I am finding limit-in in a known and well studied market is quite effective in that B/E is reached quickly and stops are often smaller. *BUT* not comfortable. Please feel free to comment. Thanks.
I separate signal from entry. ie Signal can tell me go long, and retrace gets me long, and such retrace would be entered via limit.
It depends. I've got setups that use limit entries and setups that use stop entries. I've got setups that have the flexibility to use either/or depending on the situation. Don't think of it as one being "better" than the other, think of it as being a trade-off between lower win rates / smaller stops and higher win rates / larger stops.
Typically, stop entries but in this current volatility, I'm having to put in limit orders post-signal due to the S/R stops being too far away. Sometime it gets filled and sometimes not but the environment is offering more signals so it is what it is. I considered putting back my lowest TF for entries but the reason I took it off was because I had to do more second entries. With two TF's, my losses are a tick and a fraction higher but the W/L is better....a trade off I can live with.