Swing trades

Tim, if there's something you can't understand, then let me know. It wasn't me who mentioned fins, it was suggested. For you to suggest what I need to do to hit profitability surely you must be able to show consistent returns yourself, according to your personal info you haven't achieved it yet, so how can you say - that's what you need to do, otherwise you won't make it.

Trend is a friend, that is key, I need to polish skills getting on board a trend. If you are a shop keeper selling clothes would you sell what's trendy at the time and therefore in demand or would you try to compete by offering clothing that has limited demand?


timsk said:
Hi piker,
I'll wish you luck with your trading and I'll look in on your journal from time to time, but I doubt I'll contribute to it any more because I've tried to understand what your set up and trade entry criteria are, but I can't get my head around it. Until I'm clear about what you're trying to do and the strategy employed to achieve it, I can't contribute anything useful. It's like being asked for directions without being told where it is you're trying to get to. A bit of a catch-22. If you know precisely what it is but prefer not to post on a public board like this - then fair enough. However, if you understand this point, it does bring into question why you bothered starting a journal to begin with? Your logic and thought processes are muddled. Until you have a solid foundation provided by a clear and simple trade set up, then there's little point in discussing the finer details like stop placement etc. Furthermore, piling on additional layers of analysis (e.g. Fib' retracements etc.) is more likely to muddy further the already murky waters - than it is to provide insight and clarity.

For your journal to do its job and help you move your trading forward to the point at which you're making consistently profitable trades, you'll have to address this issue, IMO. If you don't know precisely what it is that you're trying to achieve and precisely how you're going to achieve it, then you'll endlessly go round and round in circles. At the moment, you appear to me to be an exponent of 'Shotgun Trading', a hugely popular but rather ineffectual technique of taking poorly aimed pot shots at multiple moving targets and hoping to get lucky by hitting one or two of them.
Tim.
Click to expand...
 
piker said:
For you to suggest what I need to do to hit profitability surely you must be able to show consistent returns yourself, according to your personal info you haven't achieved it yet, so how can you say - that's what you need to do, otherwise you won't make it.
Click to expand...

No-one giving you advice for free is going to provide proof of consistent returns. If you need that in order to feel confidence in what someone is saying then you're in the wrong place.

Good luck with your journal, i hope you keep it up, a lot of successful traders seem to have found blogging extremely beneficial in their journey to consistent profits.
 
Mr Black Swan,
I am hoping we just have crossed communications as I would otherwise expect more from a "forum guide"....

By my sentence "You should have your trades for this week planned already"
All I am meaning is that one should be well prepared for the open on a monday and should have a pretty good idea what his response will be when the market starts moving.

If the trader covers several instruments, he should have a good idea of which one will move and what he will do in turn...... etc etc.....

I for sure prepare for monday and the oncoming week as things quieten down on a friday.

If you make no plan and make no preparations for the upcoming week then I take my hat off to you.

The only strategy i can think of that requires no preparation is probably scalping, as you are reactionary., maybe this is you? But saying that, even scalpers plan their week..... taking note of which / what will be moving enough to make their 2 bips...
 
Intraday price action is based on random order flow, so most will lose before they figure out that it can not be traded successfully whilst in retail, daily and longer is where real money is. If you ever wish to manage opm, they will never give you a due consideration if they realise that you daytrade their money.
 
piker said:
Tim, if there's something you can't understand, then let me know. It wasn't me who mentioned fins, it was suggested. For you to suggest what I need to do to hit profitability surely you must be able to show consistent returns yourself, according to your personal info you haven't achieved it yet, so how can you say - that's what you need to do, otherwise you won't make it.

Trend is a friend, that is key, I need to polish skills getting on board a trend. If you are a shop keeper selling clothes would you sell what's trendy at the time and therefore in demand or would you try to compete by offering clothing that has limited demand?
Click to expand...
Hi piker,
If you're only prepared to listen to traders who are consistently profitable themselves, then I think you're A) missing a trick and B) you've got a massive and insurmountable problem.

A) Some of the best trading advice that I've ever received has been from people who don't trade themselves and openly admit to knowing nothing about it. I've also received (what I regard as) good advice, help, insight etc. from unprofitable traders and traders who have blown their accounts. Hopefully, I've learnt from their mistakes. Only taking advice from consistently profitable traders implies that they change their views about the markets and how to trade them as and when they become profitable. This is impossible as you have to form your views about the markets and have a well defined set up and trade plan before you become successful! There's no other way as far as I know.

B) As mb325 rightly points out, you've got no way of differentiating between those that merely talk the talk from those that walk the walk. Most - if not all - of the contributors to your thread so far fall into the former category, but how many fall into the latter? If you really believe in this approach, there's no point in you even surfing the forum, let alone joining it and starting a journal.

Regarding your other points about not understanding what you're doing, I've provided a detailed post indicating where your set up is riddled with inconsistencies. Another example would be the use of the MACD histogram. By the time price breaks above the 'reaction' highs, many more green bars will, inevitably, have printed after the first green bar - making it (the first green bar) redundant and losing any advantage that divergence between the histo' and price may have offered. D70 made this same point in his post #151 on P19. Your point about trading with the trend is fine as far as it goes. But, on it's own, it's not a set up and trade plan. To use the driving analogy from earlier, it's akin to saying 'I want to travel north' in answer to the question: 'where do you want to go'? It's fine as far as it goes, but it's not enough on its own. Anyway, I can't demonstrate consistent profitability, (and wouldn't even if I could), so I won't waste any more of your time or mine. Good luck with your journal and your trading.
Tim.
 
D70 said:
Mr Black Swan,
I am hoping we just have crossed communications as I would otherwise expect more from a "forum guide"....

By my sentence "You should have your trades for this week planned already"
All I am meaning is that one should be well prepared for the open on a monday and should have a pretty good idea what his response will be when the market starts moving.

If the trader covers several instruments, he should have a good idea of which one will move and what he will do in turn...... etc etc.....

I for sure prepare for monday and the oncoming week as things quieten down on a friday.

If you make no plan and make no preparations for the upcoming week then I take my hat off to you.

The only strategy i can think of that requires no preparation is probably scalping, as you are reactionary., maybe this is you? But saying that, even scalpers plan their week..... taking note of which / what will be moving enough to make their 2 bips...
Click to expand...
Does anyone seriously sit down and write a plan for the week ahead? I agree with Black Swan here, this doesn't seem real at all.

For me personally analysis happens continuously. During the day I'm constantly scanning through news services (Reuters), blogs (zerohedge is a good one), online newspapers (mainly FT), and anything else I can get my paws on. I make myself aware of upcoming planned news announcements and political events, but it's more often the case that the information that matters is unexpected and so cannot be planned for. Everything else is normally already priced in.

So planning ahead is largely a waste of time, real trading is done on the fly and in the moment, and requires snap decision making based on being able to sift a load of complex info.
 
virtuos0 said:
Does anyone seriously sit down and write a plan for the week ahead? I agree with Black Swan here, this doesn't seem real at all.

For me personally analysis happens continuously. During the day I'm constantly scanning through news services (Reuters), blogs (zerohedge is a good one), online newspapers (mainly FT), and anything else I can get my paws on. I make myself aware of upcoming planned news announcements and political events, but it's more often the case that the information that matters is unexpected and so cannot be planned for. Everything else is normally already priced in.

So planning ahead is largely a waste of time, real trading is done on the fly and in the moment, and requires snap decision making based on being able to sift a load of complex info.
Click to expand...


My planned trades for the week? Havn't got a fookin clue. Can tell you, by the great deity of probability, that I'll probably take 30-50 trades on 9 currency pairs if everything lines up for me to pull the trigger...something I'd like to do with real ammo on 'ere at times....:D
But to say have your trades planned ahead for the week is as stoopid a remark I've read in ages. I've taken 5 trades this morning; 2 losses, one in 'good' profit, two so far scratch...still in 3 (from the 11th) in decent profit...
 
Tim, if I don't know how to drive a car, I am not going to tell another fella how to drive a car. You clearly expect a mechanical approach from to a constantly changing Market environment. I am half mechanical, half discretionary. You seem to expect me to be totally mechanical. So you bring an example of divergence, I don't look for divergences to counter trade, I am not interested in getting in early as to get very first points, I look for divergences as signals of possible trend continuation, so it's not enough for me to see indicator going green, I need price to go through resistance also, which did take place on 4 hour SPX chart. Saying that, I don't look at just divergences, I look for clues mainly strengthening price action, not just 4 hour chart, I may look at 8 hour chart, 16 hour chart. Again, I am not interested in bounce points, I want to catch proper continuation.
 
piker said:
Intraday price action is based on random order flow, so most will lose before they figure out that it can not be traded successfully whilst in retail, daily and longer is where real money is. If you ever wish to manage opm, they will never give you a due consideration if they realise that you daytrade their money.
Click to expand...
I disagree;
And imagine what an idiot they would think if you said you wanted to manage money and you said
' I'm a long-term trader who doesn't hold trades over the weekend '

I trade intraday pretty consistantly; With a high win percent and average Risk:Reward...
:smart: so factually, unless i'm a 'anonomy of luck' then you can day-trade.
 
Black Swan said:
My planned trades for the week? Havn't got a fookin clue. Can tell you, by the great deity of probability, that I'll probably take 30-50 trades on 9 currency pairs if everything lines up for me to pull the trigger...something I'd like to do with real ammo on 'ere at times....:D
But to say have your trades planned ahead for the week is as stoopid a remark I've read in ages.
Click to expand...

Mr Black Swan.......
From a site you often quote......... "why have a trading plan"........>>

http://www.babypips.com/school/why_have_a_trading_plan.html

Regards,.
 
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I'll delete this post; I realised its a public forum and highly likely the nurses are on this forum.

For those who read it; As you can imagine; I'm feeling ****.
 
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i did write a long answer but it is probablly wasted in this circumstance

i don't understand how you can not see the value of tims point - you can learn how to do something from someone who cant do it, because it is just the same as someone who can do something. the reason are just as valuable and they give you information on what you need to do to do something. People on here may have different trading methods, but one thing that most people on here know is how not to trade regardless of their current skill level. Interestingly, some of the most valuable help i got was from tim, he claims he isn't profitable, but he helped me a lot just because he had the experience...in trading with the vagaries of the market, i'd say profitablity isn't always a great indication...i would much rather take advice from some who has been doing this for more than 5 years than from someone who had made 1000% over a year or something.

It has been mentioned before, the plan needs to say where the market ineffciency is, that is the heart this is where the money is, sometimes the setup will be important sometimes it won't be, but again you have to know where the money is.
 
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Black Swan said:
You're back tracking and your attempt to crudely dissemble your statement is sad...but not as 'awesome' as you dispensing advice/wisdom to the OP, given you know nowt that takes some front...gotta go, some of the trades I took on 'sleepy Friday' need managing...:sleep:
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Ow come on now "blackie".... just because I made you look stupid, no need to angry.

:LOL:
 
D70 said:
Ow come on now "blackie".... just because I made you look stupid, no need to angry.

:LOL:
Click to expand...

I don't think you made him look stupid.

+ As a member of the black community, using the word blackie is unappropriate.

P.s. I'm white

+ If he was angry; He'd be more like this ' I'll meet you for a fight init or you scared? '
 
cr6196 said:
i did write a long answer but it is probablly wasted in this circumstance

i don't understand how you can not see the value of tims point - you can learn how to do something from someone who cant do it, because it is just the same as someone who can do something. the reason are just as valuable and they give you information on what you need to do to do something. People on here may have different trading methods, but one thing that most people on here know is how not to trade regardless of their current skill level. Interestingly, some of the most valuable help i got was from tim, he claims he isn't profitable, but he helped me a lot just because he had the experience...in trading with the vagaries of the market, i'd say profitablity isn't always a great indication...i would much rather take advice from some who has been doing this for more than 5 years than from someone who had made 1000% over a year or something.

It has been mentioned before, the plan needs to say where the market ineffciency is, that is the heart this is where the money is, sometimes the setup will be important sometimes it won't be, but again you have to know where the money is.
Click to expand...

Also; Thing about Timsk is; with a body like that ...
Why wouldn't you take tips?
He'll get you nice abs in days!
 
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