Doug Green

Today is my second daily trading blog. See yesterday for the introductions. One trade today for -3 ticks, and one undocumented trade in the afternoon for +1 tick, so -2 for the day.

1. I woke up early this morning but not early enough to get the B short on the 1152 around 5:50am.
2. At 8:30am we had a run with for a potential F short on the 1152. It started to pause inside the big triggers. I passed on this trade initially because the 1152 macd trend and mx we're positive by this point. There's a major 1:1 at 1130.75 on the short term charts (233 and 288), and there's a zsr just above at 1131. This is a potential turning point, but it's also a potential follow through area. The small triggers on the 233 are closing (but not rolling). It's slow which is worrisome.
   • Trading is a business of managed risk. This trade is not perfect but may be worth the risk. I'm going to try and get 1130.50 short. Got filled, giving it a 5 tick stop which is a tick above the upper balance line. First target is 1127.50. So I'm risking 5 ticks for a potential 12 tick run.
   • It ran up to my stop (I'm using Ninja's "Simulated Stop Vol Trigger 20", so I didn't get stopped out immediately). The 1:1 at 1130.75 and the zsr at 1131 didn't hold well, so I closed this out at best possible case, which turned out to be -3 ticks. In retrospect, not sure that this was a horrible trade, but I could of listened to myself talk about the 1152 macd and mx, volume slowness, and could of waited for the trigger roll; this trade was riskier than I'd like.
   • After market analysis shows that I completely misread this: (a) we didn't have a C pivot so this wasn't a potential F, (b) my entry was actually too high, had we had a C and had I been looking for an F, an F that high was actually a little beyond where it should of occurred, (c) but the big misread is the small triggers ended up coming through the big triggers, so I really should of been looking long on the pullback to the big trigs as shown in this second chart.
   • The chart to the right shows the 1152 with a vertical line where I was thinking we could have the potential F (completely misread), a horizontal line at my entry point (which is clearly too high, above the big trigs and even with the A pivot), a circle where I was filled, and most importantly a rectangle around the pullback to the big trigs which was the better long signal I missed.
3. Now 8:45am and we're going to get an X on both short term charts. But nothing is happening fast. Waiting... now it's 8:55am and still nothing... Now waiting for market open...
4. Market open, bias is long on both long term charts, but it looks like we're forming a B short on short term charts. Just a minute later short term charts move higher and now it looks like we're going to get a BB and possibly another high X, which is also going to be a BB (or an X if we're lucky) on the 1152, but only an A on the 7500. This is a mess. I'm hoping that we're going to drift long on the 1152 and setup a better ABC series. We might need to wait for the 10am news (ISM manufacturing).
5. At 9:41am we got a BB on the 1152 and an A on the 7500. I was thinking of looking for a C long on the 1152, which would also be a B long on the 7500. I'm thinking of the C on the 1152 because we got a BB (a BB pivot is a B pivot that was moved because we got a higher/lower pivot while in an A and before getting the C), meaning that the series isn't working quite as expected. But when I look closer, our 1152 A pivot is so far down (it's now below the lower balance line), that we're never going to get a C on the 1152. Had the C been at support near the big triggers this would of been good. But as that can't happen, I'm chucking this idea, and just going to wait until we get an X on the long term charts, which means still waiting for the 10am news
6. At 9:45am the 1152 bias switched to short, and the 7500 seems to be moving in that direction, but isn't there yet. By 10am the 7500 bias meandered with no conviction (macd squeezing but still long, mx down, but not clean), and the 1152 mx switched back to long. We hardly moved with news.
7. By 10:05am, we've been in a 3 point box all morning between the 1129.75 zsr and now at the 1133 zsr. Long term macd and mx is showing long, but we just barely broke 1133 and started to head down. At this point if I had to guess I'm thinking long, and buying the A pivot on the short term would be a decent idea. The problem is that it's hard to buy the A because it's hard to figure out where it's going to occur. They happen so fast that using triggers doesn't work. It's best to just buy the midband. If I was going to buy here, I'd buy 1132 (midband on 233) or 1131.75 (midband on 288). But when everything is going against you, that's a harder trade to take, and I'm going to pass.
8. At 10:10am we had our first macd divergence on the short term charts. And by 10:20am it's looking like we might get another connecting pivot with divergence. There's only two ticks difference between the X at 10:05am the X at 10:10am and the S at 10:17am. Watch for this to act as resistance long. If we break it strong then the rest of the day is likely going up.
9. By 10:30am Macd divergence has spilled over to the 1152 chart, we haven't had an extreme on the long term charts all day, the 1152 series is now over (meaning no clear direction). I'd like to wait for an X on the 1152 and/or 7500, but I might just quit.
10. I missed the B long at 9:50am on the 7500. I just didn't see it. The fibonacci projection at 1129.25 near the zsr at 1129.75 was a good entry area. But as the low just briefly hit 1129.75, I suspect I would not of been filled. and we would of been left chasing this, which is usually a bad idea.
11. At 10:20am a potential F is forming on the 7500. Since the B on the 7500 was the only decent trade today, I'm considering this F, which is still a work in progress as I write. But by the time this became possible the 1152 macd trend was down and the mx was moving down. So, since nothing has worked right today, I'm actually considering taking this C short on the 7500, but I'm late and we have a 1:1, the big trigger, the balance line, and a zsr to get through... a little too much. The place to have done this is at 1133 when small triggers we're closing, but price had already moved to 1131.75 by the time I wrote this.
12. So I'm quiting for day... down 3 ticks :(