Best Thread Trade2Win's 10 Year Anniversary - Day 5 (Anatomy of a Trade)

Well - there I sat, a bundle of nerves the first time I did this - but I knew then I didn't have to enter if I screwed up. Well today I HAD to enter. I'd promised... :rolleyes:

And today - well - I had butterflies in my stomach. No idea why. Must be performance anxiety.

So - anyway - I'm not going to trade feeling like this - but I did promise. So here is my 100 share trade on the SPY, based on looking at the ES.

Very simple - a lower low followed by a pullback up towards the high and then sellers jumping in again. There's not much to say about this, the ES went up to 1296, just shy of the recent highs and so expecting sellers to come in at this point was a bit of a no-brainer.

1-26-201111-21-25AM.jpg


Will update this with the results later.

Note that I was watching the ES DOM/Time & Sales. In the morning, we saw the DOM thin out before the news and to be honest, the news was a bit of a damp squib. We were in the middle of yesterdays range, we had very little movement so far and we had traded 200K contracts and the delta (total market buy orders - total market sell orders) was +7k. So selling and buying was very mixed. At about 10:07 at 1291, a bunch of buyers came in with market orders of 1040, 669, 1039 and that cleared out a few levels and then a bunch of other people joined them. At this point though, the market had lulled me into a semi-comatose state and I completely failed to react.

1-26-201111-40-15AM.jpg


You can see the market got into a nice rhythm with the 1.25-1.5 point pullbacks and then the first sign of a reversal was the 2.25 point pullback. The next high (1296) got there without the delta rising, which can mean that sellers are getting weaker. None of these things would make you short the high on their own but they are the kind of things you can look for, if you aren't too weak at the knees. The lower low after all this was just begging to be taken though - so at that point a pullback is a pretty good trade.

Yours, with a heart of stone & legs of jelly, hoping to get enough out of the trade for a bag of chips...

DT

PS - Nicole - don't knock yourself our trying to beat this, it shouldn't take much effort ;-)
 
It takes me so long to type these posts that I'm almost out by the time I posted the last post.

I have tightened the stop to just above a 70% retracement - which I generally figure as being 'a bit much'. There's no other obvious area for the stop at this point in time. I do actually use a fib tool - with just 2 custom levels of 50% & 70%. For pullbacks, less than 50% isn't enough and more than 70% is a bit much (unless of course I am trying to enter where the more the better).

1-26-201111-50-30AM.jpg
 

Sorry, I didn't realise.

I lost it a bit - I've been short time trader for some time and haven't left a trade open overnight for a long time.

PS Fed interest rate decision etc. at 19:15 GMT - I prefer to stay out round that time.

I'm a swinger on currencies, I don't hold crude overnight unless its in a separate personal account.
I will post my AUD trade in a bit, my sterling was less successful and USDJPY finally going the right way but not really much to show and tell yet.
 
I'm a swinger on currencies, I don't hold crude overnight unless its in a separate personal account.
I will post my AUD trade in a bit, my sterling was less successful and USDJPY finally going the right way but not really much to show and tell yet.

You big tease...
 
I will vote for you if you develop a calendar play on the crude spread, Nic.
Ha the calendar spread is pretty tame at the moment compared to the $4.00 it has been.

The spread between Brent and WTI crude due to the massive glut at Cushing is more interesting - its at a near record $9.06 today. That is the difference in the price of crude for delivery in London and in the US
 
Hi elitejets,
Well done, superb video: eloquent, clear and measured. I could listen to you all day! If you haven't already, bung it on YouTube and you are assured a cult following.

One issue that I hope you might clarify is your use of fibs. I've been struck by just how many of the entrants to this comp' use fibs. Even DT (much to my surprise) said he used them. Can you expand on why you use them and why you have faith in them? To my way of thinking, this is the only 'hole' in an otherwise excellent explanation of your trade.
Thanks,
Tim.
 
Hi Timsk
My use of fibs and the extensions is related to harmonic patterns and gartley patterns / wolfe waves, etc and probably way too out there for most readers. Gartley wrote his book in 1934 and at the time it cost the equivalent of a couple of luxury cars. Today you can learn them if you are just willing to do the study. The last guy that started a thread on fibs and harmonic patterns got a bit of a drubbing and so I am a bit wary of going into the mystical juju aspect of it.

I mainly use support and resistance like a lot of the people here but there are times when price is in uncharted territory or you want to know which level price will go to and I find fibs helps me add weight to that.

Hi elitejets,
Well done, superb video: eloquent, clear and measured. I could listen to you all day! If you haven't already, bung it on YouTube and you are assured a cult following.

One issue that I hope you might clarify is your use of fibs. I've been struck by just how many of the entrants to this comp' use fibs. Even DT (much to my surprise) said he used them. Can you expand on why you use them and why you have faith in them? To my way of thinking, this is the only 'hole' in an otherwise excellent explanation of your trade.
Thanks,
Tim.
 
Both entrants will now be invited to submit a new trade by 12pm midnight tomorrow. If either entrant prefers not to participate, then the other entrant will be declared the winner.


I thought on these occasions, the number of passes was taken into consideration.

In any case, can't these 'ere Kindles be cut in two?
Pah! modern technology....
 
Top