Non profitable trader in training for swings

July 2024 Tuesday 23 ( 5min MES futures )

Yesterday was a TRD that ended as a bull reversal bar, we had a strong move down this past days and this is the 1st attemp to reverse after daily closed below EMA 20. Yesterday High is going to be an important level since we could have a strong reversal up from EMA or a lot of LMT bears who wants to join the strong bear leg.

1.- FBO at HoY and test Low of bear leg on daily

2.- Bull BO at HoY and reach that 50% PB or even more

3.- TRD

Trades:

1.- This is the only trade that I like, it could be hard to take because we had 3 bear bars vs 8 bull bars but the context and the setup is good. A lot of overlap in that wedge

2.- I dont like this setup because I thought bears would have a 2nd leg, in fact I was pretty sure about bears taking LoD but they didnt. After that strong bear BO with big bars and 7 bars MCH I wasnt expected that a DB + MDB would lead to that kind of reversal when bears couldnt even get the LoD and they havent a single chance to create a 2nd leg. Maybe the 2nd leg was after that inside bar at EMA, but I am not sure about it, I like to see the legs and this looks like a single BO

After those 2 trades you could take a few more but I wasnt sure about any of those. I see the white arrow as a reason to exit longs but not a reason to sell after that strong bull leg, then all the bars have big tails on bottom and holding at EMA so they are not good Stop Order Sells, even with that we got a huge bear BO and a channel down or TTR, you could argue and say buy after that nested wedge + DB and BO above EMA, but we were on a TTR in a TRD and the price is at 50% of the days range so for me it is better to do nothing

Thoughts—> I am never “sure” with V reversals or with any reversal setup after strong MCH BO, I feel way safer if I wait for a 2nd entry instead of taking the first entry even if it is a DT/DB, I know that DT and DB are some kind of H/L2 but at the same time I dont feel good taking the first reversal attemp, what do you guys think about those kind of scenarios where the price drops with strenght but we have a DB or MDB with Strong SB? It is okay for you to take them? because I am always thinking that trapped out traders could be waiting for that PB in order to join the trend.

Thats all, have a nice day

July 2024 Thursday 25 ( 5min MES futures )

Yesterday was a strong bear Trend day (channel), after this kind of days is really odd to have another strong bear trend, but it is common to have some trend resumption + TR or just TR, so those are things to keep in mind, also yesterday closed near its low so LoY is going to be a magnet.

1.- Trend resumption + TR

2.- TR

3.- Strong reversal up

Having this in mind LoY is going to be a good place to spot any setup in order to join todays PA.

Trades:

1.- I think it is a good setup but if you take it you have to be aware that triangle BO can fail 50% of times and that would mean FBO of triangle + 2nd entry long FBO LoY, so be ready to exit or even reverse if things go wrong

2.- You can take the first bar ( lower prob ) or the second ( higher prob, big risk ). I have a lot of problems with this kind of setups and I am going to explain why. If you read context and you are able to completly forget about GX and take this RTH chart as the only real thing, this bear BO came after triangle FF, BO late on Trend and also broke the channel down, this could mean exhaustion and that reversal bar is a really good signal in order to buy. But at the same time if you think ETH chart have meaning, that is not a Bear BO of a bear Channel anymore, also if you focus on todays PA this is a really good and strong BO and that little doji is not a reason to reverse that huge bear strength, even after the bull BO bar you are at 50% PB, the gap is not closed yet and bears deserve a 2nd leg down, so I am not sure about this trades because I dont know how to read the context, yesterday PA RTH or ETH, todays PA have meaning on its own or it dosnt?…Anyway if we focus on todays PA we have the following:

bears:

triangle BO ( apex use to get tested )

1st Strong BO of the day

3CC bear bars STC

Strong Reversal up but 50% PB and Gap still up, only 1 Leg down

bulls:

2nd entry long FBO LoY

Signal bar closing on High but doji against huge bear strength

Good Bull BO bar but 50% PB and Gaps

Bears only have 1 leg but it is the open so strong reversal can happen out of nowhere

3.- I think this is a really good trade but the day looks way to bullish so it is important to be aware of EMA which its also at the same level of some lows and could create a DB PB to EMA

4.- We have reasons to make the buy but it is really scary to take those trades after this kind of day

5.- As I said on the image, it is a PB at EMA with strong SB, so it is a good sell by itself, but bulls were way to strong in order to reach that level, so we dont know if they are going to have a 2nd leg up or they just went that hight so fast in order to exit if they were trapped buying the past bull bar at that exact hight.

Thoughts —> I know you guys and the course always said focus on one chart, is all that you need, choose RTH or ETH, but its really wierd for me, it is like makes no sense in my head, RTH have really good setups and looks clean but at the same time the pre market PA or GX PA means something, it is not like that PA dosnt exist or makes no sense, so why we shouldnt read that PA too in order to see what is happening at the open? I also know that a lot of people reads ETH chart in order to trade the open but if that is the case why the PA looks good for the open using ETH but at the same time you can find a wedge bottom for example using RTH at the open and works perfectly fine or yesterday channels phase aligns perfectly with todays channel phase on RTH but if you use ETH theres no conection between them…

I am sorry for saying this things, I know a lot of you find this kind of thoughts childish or that I am just mad because I am not able to trade it correctly and I am trying to make excuses or something like that, that I am overthinking and the only thing that I need to do is work with one of them and forget about the other. But being honest this is really hard for me, I need to understand something in order to believe it and I dont get why this disonance between RTH and ETH makes any sense.

I am really sorry if this bother any of you, but for me it is something that I cant get out of my head even if I try.

If someone have a point of view about this I would love to hear it, as long as you are respectfull I am okay hearing anything that you have to say.

Have a good day!

Hi Alejandro 

sometimes if there's no a clear explanation for a sudden move it could be that the reason comes from a higher timeframes. Yesterday it could have been the touch on the trendline to cause some profit taking from the bears, hence the bounce. There are many forces at play and it's hard to keep an eye on all of them so we can just accept that anything can happen, and that a little doji can sometimes reverse 3 strong bear bars.

both eth and rth

I have been thinking and I believe that everything I have said about my thoughts in the previous post, are nothing more than excuses I make for myself in order to not take a trade and save myself from the fear of being wrong.

It is true that I like RTH more than ETH because everything looks cleaner, and I think that the gaps, as well as the PB 50%, or the HoY LoY are areas that always have some kind of resistance or strength. I also think that the ETH is important, because there are very strong movements that occur in it, and whether you want it or not, if the price reached a resistance zone in GX does not have to go again in NY and this is something that happens more than once, after all, the people who make Swings in HTF I would say that they does not make distinctions of openings, they just look at whether the price reached or not to their targets. they dont care if the price reached that level on RTH or ETH, I also believe that many patterns that are not completed in RTH when the day ends, end up being completed in ETH many times.

That said I think both make sense in their own way, and I don't think it is a good option to trade the openings waiting to have two correct setups on both charts pointing to the same direction, this is something that I dont do but it always have an eco in my head, I guess the answer is what I have always had in front of me and didn't want to accept, it is best to focus on one and forget about the other, sometimes one will be clearer than the other, but there is no rule of thumb that puts one chart above the other either.

August 2024 Thursday 1 ( 5min MES futures )

Yesterday was a Huge bull day ( having in mind the gap ) but the RTH data was more like a TRD even if closed with a bull body. We also had a prominent tail so it is important to see what is going to be the reaction at HoY in order to know what to expect for today.

1.- More TRD

2.- FT so successfull BO of HoY

3.- FBO of HoY and fill the gaps below, trapped bears

I did not have a clear idea of what could happend today so I was eager to take any good setup, the only thing that I new was that HoY could be an important level and also that the last Hour of yesterday’s PA formed a triangle BO pattern.

I am going to show a bit of data from the day before yesterday because theres some important levels to keep in mind.

Trades:

I am not going to mark every single entry, but being honest we could sell at any place as long as your SL is where it should be.

1.- The trade its awesome, I think theres almost no reason to not take the chance if you can afford it, the only reason why I am using a white arrow is because lately the ATR is huge and with my account I cant afford this kind of SL, as you know from my past posts I am trading with almost 2’5% risk on every single trade, but with this kind of ATR the only way to take this trades is if I am willing to increase my risk to 5% and I dont know If I should do it or just wait until the ATR goes down again.

The rest of the day is self explanatory, huge bear day, theres no reason to buy, bears were implacable and they managed to fill all the gaps, even almost reached the Low of 2 days ago and reversed that huge gap in a single RTH day.

Thoughts —> I cant say much, we need to understand that this kind of days exist, and no matter how much you think something is climatic, if the price keeps doing what its being doing theres no reason to be against it, just wait, hold your trades if you are strong enough to hold them, forget about fear and focus on what is the market doing.

I need to think about my risk and see if it is worth it to increase my risk per trade in order to be able to take this setups and also allow me to take setups like BO + FT and be able to buy with 1 contract at the highs for example and leave some room for another contract if there is a PB. This way I could trade with more room to take good setups with good management, but I am not sure if it is wise to risk 5% of my balance in a single trade…maybe the best is just keep my risk low at 2-2’5% and just wait until the ATR goes down again, even if that means miss a lot of trades.

Thank you for everything.

August 2024 Friday 2 ( 5min MES futures )

Yesterday was one of the biggest bear trends that we had in a lot of time and today the market opens with a really big gap down. Seems like the market is melting and being honest I am not sure about any setup in advance, so the only thing that I can do is wait and see how the PA unfold and trade it.

1.- We could close de gap

2.- TRD

3.- BO FT

Today ATR was huge, on the first hour we had like 16-22p ATR and that is massive so I decided to leave the charts early and that is the reason why the last entry ( the one with TG ) is with white arrow, I wasnt there, and the SL is higher than my 2’5% risk so no trade for me.

If the market keeps with this new ATR it is possible that I will move to a different instrument like M2k in order to be able to trade, I hope MES came back to normal ATR because I am starting to understand the way it moves and I dont feel confortable trading other instruments, but at the same time I cant stay with this ATR either

Trades:

1/2.- Both are different entries under the same premise, BO + PB + L1 + Trend Resumption, after the 3th CC bear bar, which is a good trend bar CoL you can give the short a try and aim for a swing down, atleast for MM of ORange, same thing with bar 7. The problem here is that bar 2 was huge and CoH, also we are low and LoY + LLW ( Low Last Week ) is still there so I thought that we could have buyers below bar 2. If you take any of this shorts I would be so fast in exit the trade if I see some resistance there but instead of that we got the Bear BO.

As I said the ATR was huge and I couldnt take any trade.

3.- I think this trade is a good one, atleast for a 1iR, the market was transitioning to a TR, the EMA wasnt tested in the whole day, we had 1 extremely good bullbar before and also the setup is solid.

Thoughts —> I need to checkout M2k in order to see how to use BPA in other markets just in case this new volatility stays for a while, I dont feel good with it because even BPA works, the markets have their own personality and I dont know any other market as much as I know the MES so I will need to think about moving to other market, wait for normality on MES or increase my risk in order to be able to trade here.

If someone trade the M2k or other markets with BPA I would love to know what are your thoughts, if you feel more confortable with ones than others or if you feel exactly the same, I had this same feeling of uncertainty when I see different timeframes, like the setups dosnt behave the same, the MM are a little bit different, how legs develop etc... What do you think about it?

Have a nice weekend!

August 2024 Tuesday 6 ( 5 min MES futures )

Yesterday was a TRD after huge gap down, I thought HoY was a good magnet to see the following:

1.- Bears sold bad H1 on daily after Bear BO, so more TRD or Bear Trend Resumption

2.- Bulls keeps pushing higher seeing this Bear BO as a Exhaustion Bar

Trades:

1.- It is not a 2iR trade because is a BO + FT trade, but it is good enough, higher prob = more risk

2.- It is good to take the chance, but I dont like too much the fact that we were over EMA for a lot of bars and the last bull leg was strong and could be trapped bulls up there since reasonable buy, also even if we had a L2 short the PA there was more like a TTR than a clear LH L2. The price didnt reached the target for very little, and bears got trapped with that STC bar that was reversed.

Thoughts —> I am starting to see how trapped bears/bulls are able to exit with BE on first trade most of the time if the entry was reasonable and this makes me think that take good bars/setups that aim to those targets are reliable trades, even if you look for a target at 50% of both entries.

Again no trades for me due to high ATR