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[rawrschach]

Anyone use market profile at all?

 

[rollsafe]

USD CHF Daily Pin Short setting up

USD CHF Daily Pin Short setting up

 

[grimweasel]

Hi Omni,
Thanks for the reminder on emotion.

Looking at the charts of cable I've felt a little silly having not been involved in such a move down. Every day I thought 'This must be the bottom, it can't sink further etc'. As you said, Trade what you see! The charts show everything that the markets know, or think they know, from every size and scale of trader; all the fear and greed etc. As I have not seen a solid reason to enter (under my current plan and r/r ratio) I have sat it out.

Seems quite a few $ pairs are putting in Pins this evening.
Check out daily E/$, Aud/USD and NZD/USD.

There's major news to come tomorrow and Fri so I may sit and watch these develop rather than take action just yet. NFP are predicted to come in at -75K and tomorrow sees the BoE decision (predicted to be a hold on rates again). MP was a great fan of letting the 4hr charts point to the direction of news trades but I found it a little too much like gambling for me so I didn't want to master it (is he still banned??).

I've just re-read Dr Elder's 'Come into my Trading Room' again. I'm now a big fan of his 3 screen set up which lets you see the strategic picture then the tactical one.

In short, have 3 screens. Find your chosen TF then multiply by 5 up and divide by 5 down for the 2 screens on either side. I'm sticking to daily charts so my strategic set up is to monitor the trend on the weekly using trendlines, S/R and MACD. Then I trade with the trend. Go down to the next screen (daily) and look for candles/patterns forming etc near the tops/bottoms against the trend (so if weekly is up look for daily action to be down from EMA/TLs etc and vice versa). The final chart is the tactical entry (4hr) using oscillators such as the force index or stochastic to time the entry.

The great secret to Pin Bars I have found (to my peril) is that you MUST, as TD said on his previous thread, wait for the pin to finish forming, and the next bar to finish to confirm the action. Being away from the screen in the day saw me setting orders above/below pins that had not had their action confirmed by the next bar. This saw me losing on some trades as I was jumping the gun. I'll keep you posted on how things turn out.
Grim

 

[Ljr]

The great secret to Pin Bars I have found (to my peril) is that you MUST, as TD said on his previous thread, wait for the pin to finish forming, and the next bar to finish to confirm the action. Being away from the screen in the day saw me setting orders above/below pins that had not had their action confirmed by the next bar. This saw me losing on some trades as I was jumping the gun. I'll keep you posted on how things turn out.
Grim

Grim,

What do you mean by 'had their action confirmeed'. Could you provide an example. I don't recall TD say you must wait for the next bar to finish. If the set up is good you enter on the break of the Pin.

 

[grimweasel]

Ljr,
That's what I mean. Sorry I should have been clearer! Sometimes I have seen a pin and rather than wait for the daily bar to finsh (next day) I have jumped the gun and set an order, only that the h/l of the pin was never broken, making it an invalid and early set-up. So I suckered myself in with a lapse of trading discipline by not waiting for confirmation of the pin bar break.
Grim

 

[1Pipped]

Looking at the charts of cable I've felt a little silly having not been involved in such a move down.

Yeheheh! same here!

Also, like you say grim, lots of $ pins around today, USDCHF looks good to me.

I closed gbpjpy short omni, not yesterday but day before about this time of night, at 193.48 just after it bounced off the low from the beginning of the year, just under 5:1. Maybe closed it a bit soon ?

 

[Ljr]

Ljr,
That's what I mean. Sorry I should have been clearer! Sometimes I have seen a pin and rather than wait for the daily bar to finsh (next day) I have jumped the gun and set an order, only that the h/l of the pin was never broken, making it an invalid and early set-up. So I suckered myself in with a lapse of trading discipline by not waiting for confirmation of the pin bar break.
Grim

Ok got you.

Thanks

 

[omni]

Yeheheh! same here!

Also, like you say grim, lots of $ pins around today, USDCHF looks good to me.

I closed gbpjpy short omni, not yesterday but day before about this time of night, at 193.48 just after it bounced off the low from the beginning of the year, just under 5:1. Maybe closed it a bit soon ?

Hey 1pipped,
5:1......... that's all i think you need say
Nice tradin'

 

[trader_dante]

The great secret to Pin Bars I have found (to my peril) is that you MUST, as TD said on his previous thread, wait for the pin to finish forming, and the next bar to finish to confirm the action. Being away from the screen in the day saw me setting orders above/below pins that had not had their action confirmed by the next bar. This saw me losing on some trades as I was jumping the gun. I'll keep you posted on how things turn out.
Grim

Hold on...what do you mean by "the next bar to finish to confirm the action"? I put my orders above or below the pin as soon as the day turns and the next bar begins to print. For the most part, I don't care what the next bar is doing. I either get filled or I don't.

 

[simoncs]

GBP/EUR 1hr

Hi all

1hr pin on GBP/EUR nose touching S/R and fib61.8 on hourly tf
also in direction of trend
can GBP sink any lower?

 

[trader_dante]

I closed gbpjpy short omni, not yesterday but day before about this time of night, at 193.48 just after it bounced off the low from the beginning of the year, just under 5:1. Maybe closed it a bit soon ?

Good trade 1Pipped. Your coment cracked me up as 5:1 is an excellent return that I do not see many traders achieve. It reminds me of something that was funny the other day. I know I've said it before but here at my prop firm, the traders are for the most part playing for small gains but are in and out all day long and therefore making good gains. A good gain depends on the market but it seems to me that its a few ticks per contract. Well the other day I was justifying myself to one of the risk managers as to why I let a 50 tick gain in the Cable come back to breakeven. He was astounded that anyone was going to let 50 ticks turn to nothing and when he asked me I looked him straight in the face and said with all seriousness: "I was waiting to see if it was going to really go". To which he replied: "I would say after 50 ticks it's already gone..." Well, that's the mentality here. They don't have the patience and / or discipline of 1pipped and the rest of you folk taking hundreds of ticks out of the market. Although to be fair they are cleaning up in their own way, it just always amazes me that no one seems to be able to hold anything...

Anyway, 5:1 is a great return although your return is less important than watching the market and deciding whether it has futher to go. Just a note for the newbies: It's never good to look at a market and say "well, I think this might go further but I'm up X amount and that's a good return so I'll just get out". If you are in a trade that has the potential to move more why exit it? I think the common misconception is that you are "banking the money" or "protecting the profit". Well, that's all very good. But you are not going to withdraw it all and stop trading are you? All you are going to do is store it in your account for a few hours/days/weeks and then put it back into another market and this time you will not have momentum on your side. (Not if you are trading pins which are by their very nature, reversal bars!)

 

[simoncs]

Anyway, 5:1 is a great return although your return is less important than watching the market and deciding whether it has futher to go. Just a note for the newbies: It's never good to look at a market and say "well, I think this might go further but I'm up X amount and that's a good return so I'll just get out". If you are in a trade that has the potential to move more why exit it? I think the common misconception is that you are "banking the money" or "protecting the profit". Well, that's all very good. But you are not going to withdraw it all and stop trading are you? All you are going to do is store it in your account for a few hours/days/weeks and then put it back into another market and this time you will not have momentum on your side. (Not if you are trading pins which are by their very nature, reversal bars!)[/QUOTE]

Hi TD

I have been trying to look for the bigger gains but I seem to struggle with knowing when the trade has turned against me all together or is just a small retracement. Deciphering whether the trade has furhter to go seems to be the biggest problem. As per your teaching and your spreadsheet i try to identify the next two problem/resistence areas and see how price action reacts to these, but I still seem uncertain as to whether they will break through or not, and if i see a reveral pin appearing i tend to get out.
I have attached an example (i know it's a 5min tf - pls don't shoot me - I am also experimenting with PINS combined with RSI)
I took the pin after 8am short - it was going well till it got to my first problem area of S/R 5508 and formed another PIN. This is where i exited. Needless to say the trend continued downwards without me.
I have also repeated this on higher timeframes too. I always do nothing for at least 1 period of the tf i am trading to give the trade a chance. I have also tried rather than closing the trade to move the stop up but then often get stopped out for BE.

any suggestions as to how I could have managed this better would be greatly appreciated.


thanks

Simon

 

[omni]

Anyway, 5:1 is a great return although your return is less important than watching the market and deciding whether it has futher to go. Just a note for the newbies: It's never good to look at a market and say "well, I think this might go further but I'm up X amount and that's a good return so I'll just get out". If you are in a trade that has the potential to move more why exit it? I think the common misconception is that you are "banking the money" or "protecting the profit". Well, that's all very good. But you are not going to withdraw it all and stop trading are you? All you are going to do is store it in your account for a few hours/days/weeks and then put it back into another market and this time you will not have momentum on your side. (Not if you are trading pins which are by their very nature, reversal bars!)

Hi TD

I have been trying to look for the bigger gains but I seem to struggle with knowing when the trade has turned against me all together or is just a small retracement. Deciphering whether the trade has furhter to go seems to be the biggest problem. As per your teaching and your spreadsheet i try to identify the next two problem/resistence areas and see how price action reacts to these, but I still seem uncertain as to whether they will break through or not, and if i see a reveral pin appearing i tend to get out.
I have attached an example (i know it's a 5min tf - pls don't shoot me - I am also experimenting with PINS combined with RSI)
I took the pin after 8am short - it was going well till it got to my first problem area of S/R 5508 and formed another PIN. This is where i exited. Needless to say the trend continued downwards without me.
I have also repeated this on higher timeframes too. I always do nothing for at least 1 period of the tf i am trading to give the trade a chance. I have also tried rather than closing the trade to move the stop up but then often get stopped out for BE.

any suggestions as to how I could have managed this better would be greatly appreciated.


thanks

Simon

Hi Simon,
A few things to ask yourself......... (i wont comment on the 5min timeframe or the use of RSI..... )

1. Why are you taking a trade at 5522 with first point of resistance marked at 5508?
That is 14 ticks potental upside with a stop of what looks like 13/14 ticks? Plus whatever spread your bookie takes........A risk reward of 1:1 is definitely not good enough. You would need a 100% hit rate.

2. Where is the supporting evidence to the price action? Was there a reason behind the 5min sell off? If not, this is just market movements flitting about...

3. The reversal pin bar isnt really a "proper" pin bar is it? It almost has the same low as the previous bar.

I am sure Trader_Dante will have better / correct feedback. But check out his previous trading examples. They almost present a no losing situation, ie. a whole culmination of factors that leave the price no choice but to go his chosen direction. Looking out for these points is the key.

 

[trader_dante]

Simon,

First off read Omni's post above. Every point he makes is an excellent one.

I have been trying to look for the bigger gains but I seem to struggle with knowing when the trade has turned against me all together or is just a small retracement. Deciphering whether the trade has furhter to go seems to be the biggest problem. As per your teaching and your spreadsheet i try to identify the next two problem/resistence areas and see how price action reacts to these, but I still seem uncertain as to whether they will break through or not, and if i see a reveral pin appearing i tend to get out.

Always wait for the bar to finish forming and for the next bar to begin to print. Make sure this happens on the SAME TF that you entered the trade based on. Never go to a lower TF. This will be sure to shake you out. Once it has printed, if it is a bar that would make you want to take a new trade in the opposite direction, then exit. This is an important point. Is it a pin that indicates a possible small reversal against you or is it a pin that is good enough to want to actually cut and REVERSE? And even if it is, make sure that you only exit if your criteria for getting in the other way are filled. That is to say, if you are short and you see a pin to go long off a good level then put your stop where the pin triggers long. If you did this on the chart you show, you would still be in.

I have attached an example (i know it's a 5min tf - pls don't shoot me - I am also experimenting with PINS combined with RSI)

I know that regardless of what I say, people will play the 5m. It is alluring because the stops are tighter and you get more trades which means MORE OPPORTUNITIES. However, I firmly believe the lower the TF the harder it gets. If you cannot trade the daily and 4hr and 1hr for profit then you really have no business on the lower TFs.

I took the pin after 8am short - it was going well till it got to my first problem area of S/R 5508 and formed another PIN. This is where i exited. Needless to say the trend continued downwards without me.

That is because you exited prematurely. The pins high was never broken.

I have also repeated this on higher timeframes too. I always do nothing for at least 1 period of the tf i am trading to give the trade a chance.

I should think so too! I took the Euro long yesterday off of an hourly setup. It moved pretty quickly into profit too and still there was nothing to do in terms of position adjustment / stop movement until three full hours had gone by.

I have also tried rather than closing the trade to move the stop up but then often get stopped out for BE.

The quickest way to lose money trading this strategy is moving your stop to BE after a good gain. The stop should only come to BE after a good profit has come back to zero and then moved off again. It is the hardest thing to do because you have to be prepared to see good gains go to possible losses but if you can't do it the strategy won't work. Stops on pins are often big and you HAVE To max your gains if you want to make money over time.

 

[rider5]

I guys,

A pin formed on the chf/jpy yesterday, preceded by a doji the day before. This is sitting on a ppz and a long term ascending trend line that I've had on my charts for ages.
This is also supported by a 61.8 and 78.6 fib from the most recent swing lows to highs on the weekly chart.

The pin's high has already been broken and now there's a nice DBLHC ( double bar low higher close) on the 4h chart. I'm thinking this guy is ready to go higher. First problem area is around 99.03 which was a previous double bottom that could now act as resistance.

What do you think?

 

[panache]

Hold on...what do you mean by "the next bar to finish to confirm the action"? I put my orders above or below the pin as soon as the day turns and the next bar begins to print. For the most part, I don't care what the next bar is doing. I either get filled or I don't.

Phew.. I'm glad you confirmed that T_D, for a moment I thought I was on the wrong track!

 

[rawrschach]

Well the other day I was justifying myself to one of the risk managers as to why I let a 50 tick gain in the Cable come back to breakeven. He was astounded that anyone was going to let 50 ticks turn to nothing and when he asked me I looked him straight in the face and said with all seriousness: "I was waiting to see if it was going to really go". To which he replied: "I would say after 50 ticks it's already gone..."

What would you say about scaling in/out of a position?

Personally, it stresses me out to see the average follow me up/down the ladder and makes me get out everytime price consolidates - but we are expected to do it right now as trainees.

 

[mb325]

Phew.. I'm glad you confirmed that T_D, for a moment I thought I was on the wrong track!

There's a track!?!?

 

[simoncs]

Simon,

First off read Omni's post above. Every point he makes is an excellent one.


Thanks TD and Omni,
all those points mke perfect sense now.
the allure of the 5min tf is one that i am trying hard to combat. I think my biggest problem here is that I still haven't managed to catch a really good hourly setup (Daily tend to be too much risk for me). I am not saying they don't exist, far from it, i have seen you guys make several impressive trades - it's just that I seem to miss them, from either someone at work distracting me (what's that all about - don't they know i am learning to trade :cheesy or being away from my desk. I think from a psychological point of view if i was making some gains on a higher tf I would be less inclined to jump into the lower ones. I think the answer is fairly obvious - it's lack of self control
I haven't even managed to finish my trade plan yet - i have been writing it for about 2 weeks now but keep getting side tracked, by the market. Even then I am not sure how I am going to discipline myself to actually follow it.
I have read others have had similar problems and have put it down to the life cycle of learning to trade, so at least I take heart from that - I guess time will tell.

But thanks for the comments will analyse these further

 

[trader_dante]

What would you say about scaling in/out of a position?

Personally, it stresses me out to see the average follow me up/down the ladder and makes me get out everytime price consolidates - but we are expected to do it right now as trainees.

Chocolate13,

Three things to say here. Firstly a caveat: I am really doing my own thing here. I am at a prop firm and I presume you are too but I don't trade the same way as anyone else here and I don't advise you try and replicate what I do because these places are all about the round trips. Whereas for me its all about waiting and waiting for a market to setup right and then getting in a position and seeing it out. Secondly, most of what I do is very discretionary. There are no hard and fast rules so what I write below is a general mode of thinking that I have but it does not mean that I trade this way everytime. Anyway, with that said, here is my advice:

1. Scaling out: Prop firms always advise you to do this. Actually it seems does everyone you talk to does. Personally I hate it. I pick my trades carefully by entering at the pivot point and as a result, if its going to be a winner, the majority of the time its going to move a long way. Taking some off the table early on for the purposes of that emotional crutch - making it a free trade - OR taking some off at a first target always seems to make sure that I am only in half as much when the move really gets underway. Take the day before yesterday for example. I sold the FTSE at 5615. There was a support at 5568 so I decided to close out half when it got there. The market then sh*t out another 97 points (193 ticks). Of course I wasn't aware at the time that it was going to collapse through the support BUT I do have a way of trailing stops to maximise gains and I really should have been doing it in this example. Fact of the matter is I've learnt some VERY BAD HABITS from trading at a prop firm. Anyway, my technique for trailing, is too long to go into here but you can find it in my "Making Money Trading" thread. I have found that its better to turn the question of where can I get some out? on its head and ask yourself: where can I get more in? See point 2...

2. Scaling in: Scaling in is the key to big returns but it is hard to do. I only add when I would be willing to take a new trade. Since I plan every trade carefully and therefore have a stop for the "new trade" then I simply add and place both stops together in the place where the new trade is wrong. There are sometimes exceptions to this where I will stagger my stops. It really depends why I am in the first position that I took - which leads me onto point 3...

3. How do I stay in?: It all comes down to one simple question: Why did you get in? This leads you to the second question which is: Where can you add more that backs up your original reason for entry? If you got in long the Euro because Trichet said they are not going to cut rates and you bought 2 at 1.4482 and then another 1 as it started to rally at 1.4492 and then another 1 at 1.4494 and then it pauses and starts to drift back....where are you wrong?? Well, its difficult to know where you are wrong when trading the news anyway but you get my point. If you pyramid because the market is moving in your direction and you have no hard and fast place where you are wrong then you will get shaken out by a consolidation. But if, for example, you get in because a head and shoulders is forming then you could sell 2 at the left shoulder swing high. You could then sell 1 more when the neckline breaks and perhaps 1 more when the neckline is tested from below. Each time you know clearly where you are wrong on the trade. Remember: Pyramid with 1/4 to 1/2 as much each time and that way you can ride out a 50% retracement.

Final point: Be aware that TT can mess up your average price. E.g. if you buy 2 Yen at 9030 and then 2 more Yen at 9040 your average price should be 9035. However if you then sell 2 Yen at 9045 it still shows you long from 9035 which is, of course, no longer your average.