Final Post for 2009?

This will probably be the final post of 2009 from me. I didn't trade yesterday and have no plans to trade for the rest of the year.

It's nice to finish on an up note. Another fine short trade once the opening thrust ran it's course. Details on the image below:

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Terrible Trade

Even though this trade worked out and ran into profits, it was a poorly executed and managed trade on my part. Fear and greed.

The shooting star candle noted on the image below was the correct entry when price was rejected from closing above 1098.00. I entered quite late after a 1-2-3 pattern had formed and at a possible support level of 1096.25. Not a good idea. Poor management after enduring almost two points of heat was a prime reason for covering. Psychological break down. Price was moving nicely, plenty of momentum. Grrr...

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And Yet Another Short

The signals are working out today. Took another short before NY lunch time off of a grave stone doji and extreme stochastic reading. This wasn't the best signal and I thought I was headed for a loss when I was taking a point of heat. Fortunately, the short bias in the market held and it went my way. By the way, the time line at the bottom of the chart is Hawaii time. Yes, I get up very early to trade the ES e-minis.

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Another Short

The market has had a short bias to it recently which is why you're seeing mostly short trades from me. Go with the flow.

Inside bar off the opening thrust up from poor U.S. unemployment data. Trailed a stop down.

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ES Short Play

This was a quick hit for +4 ticks on the ES 03-10 contract, 5-min chart. Today I used a combination of extreme stochastics, fib level failure and candle formation. The opening move was up out of the gate where it pushed the stochastics up into extreme territory. This was also the area of the 61.8% fib retracement level. Candlesticks then proceeded to give off long wicks to the high side which further showed lack of follow through. I entered short at 1109.75 and covered at 1108.75 about 25 minutes later for +4 ticks or 1 point.

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Short Trade

Today's trade is a short off a stochastic extremes trigger. There was a lot of U.S. data released today so the opening move was out of the question as it was way too unpredictable. After a couple of hours the market calmed down and gave a nice setup for entry.

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This trade is what I referred to when I said in a previous post "We CAN control ourselves." I marked on the chart where it looked like criteria for an entry had been met. There was a shooting star and a subsequent bear candle. And the stochastics were in extreme territory. Why didn't I take this entry? There was level of support at 1106.25/50 that price had just broken through. There was no room for price to move down. It would have selling into support. Price needed to get farther away for that support area to make a short entry viable. Why not go long? For me, the move was already on and I don't like trying to catch a running train without a deeper pullback or maybe a bear hammer to compliment the entry. The only option I had was to wait for the move to exhaust itself. And finally, it did.

General Trading Information

Most aspiring(and some veteran) traders believe trading the S&P ES e-mini futures contracts is a very complex task. I don't believe that to be true. Over complicating the trading process is one of the quickest ways to the poor house. Of course no system or setup is 100% profitable, but what I show you as to how I trade is quite good. It relies on an old market axiom: 

We cannot control the market. The market cannot control us. We CAN control ourselves.

What I'm saying is self control is what it's all about. It's every bit as important as the setups you choose to enter and exit the market. Or the broker you choose. Or the platform you trade on.

I won't endorse a broker, but I use Ninja Trader as my platform. The SuperDOM(pronounced Super Dome) is an incredible tool for automating orders and exits.

I trade using a 5-min candlestick chart with horizontal S/R derived from 60-min, 30-min, 15-min and 5-min charts. I use three indicators: stochastic(14,3,3), VolumeUpDown, and BarTimer which is a bar count down timer(not sure that it qualifies as an indicator). Most traders believe oscillating indicators like the stochastic lag too much to be of much use. I use it for divergence readings and extreme levels indication. I also use Fibonacci retracements.

Welcome!

You've found my blog where I'll be posting ideas regarding strategies, psychology and setups for trading the S&P E-mini futures contract.