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Strategies & Market Trends : Systems, Strategies and Resources for Trading Futures -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert Graham who wrote (1322)	6/29/1998 11:44:00 PM
From: ViperChick Secret Agent 006.9	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 44573

HAHA no, we read this thread but it comes and goes on whether anyone posts here...or just on TSO.... they were mainly posting intraday as they were doing trades...

To: Robert Graham who wrote (1322)	6/30/1998 2:31:00 AM
From: Robert Graham	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 44573

[Text on the Day Trading of Futures] Monitoring the Morning Trade "The key to success in monitoring the morning trade is tracking price and time along with key and secondary indicators. The reason that speed is important, as we have suggested above, both in entering and exiting a position, is because the probabilities favor one end of the range [for the day] being established in this critical time period. "Your choice of indicators to monitor, of course, will be dictated by your market. Nevertheless, some, such as futures prices, will be a critical factor for everyone. So that's the place to begin your inquiry. How is the futures price behaving, both before and after you enter your position? While market adversity [ability of market to do the opposite of what you expect and go against you], especially in the early going, is commonplace, there is a limit to precisely how much you are willing to sustain. It is difficult to assess a fixed time limit on an initial entry position. There will be times when you will recognize a mistake in the very first minute; at other times, you may need to hold your position 15 to 20 minutes." "I compulsively take notes on the market, even though I have a comprehensive charting program on my TradeStation screen. The bar charts aren't enough for me, I want numbers and times so that I can go back and analyze my trading decisions. I find it is harder to fool yourself if you are writing down these specific numbers at specific intervals. For instance, if notes tell me that the case price was 782.25 at 9:45 A.M. and 782.50 at 10:00 A.M. and 782.02 15 minutes later, is there any chance I can continue to hold a short position into this rally? Chances are, I exited a losing position long ago. Actually, I find five-minute intervals more helpful. "When working with cash prices, therefore, I'll write down the price and time of day. Then, at five-minute intervals, I will register another price until I have a series of prices. With each new entry, I can make a designation as up or down. Two or more consecutive negative readings on the cash price should be a sign, taken with the other indicators, that perhaps you are on the wrong side of the trade. "This monitoring approach becomes particularly important when it comes to liquidating the trade. That's because many short-term morning trends last just 25 or 40 minutes, and often times less. This is the period of time that will typically pass before profit-taking enters the market and you have a pull back. To capture these short-term moves, you may very well want to monitor the change in values at an even shorter interval - say, every three or four minutes." Bob Graham

To: Robert Graham who wrote (1322)	6/30/1998 10:09:00 AM
From: Patrick Slevin	Respond to of 44573

<I hope I have not chased everyone away from this thread.> Not at all, it just became slow because I think everyone is in summer mode. Tom is moving, I am away from the desk most of the time, I don't know what happened to JM but that was the bulk of the posts anyway. I'm a bit wrapped up these days.....I'll get to this post by the end of the day. I have a lot of paperwork I must make a dent in.

To: Robert Graham who wrote (1322)	6/30/1998 11:09:00 AM
From: Patrick Slevin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 44573

The Open That's all pretty straight-forward stuff. Another key to watch is INTER day direction. If the market has been opening strong and closing weak it is in some trouble and of course the converse is true. The Morning Trade The scenario for the Morning Trade can be a little mixed depending on perception. The idea that it is immediately profitable or not is not necessarily so. If I am marginally unprofitable I give it a bit of room but rarely more than 15 or 20 minutes. As far as being on the "correct" side but then allowing it to eat into profits and adding to the position ----of this I would be wary. The 15 to 20 minute time frame that you are waiting can be an eternity. One exit strategy I use when a trade is moving in my direction and stalls is to take partial profits and go back 4 5-minute ticks. As each 5-minute tick bar goes by I look drop the mental stop to the opposite end of the next 5-minute tick. You can see that as the market starts to stall my stop gets tighter and tighter. After all, I'm here for a day-trade. I'm not going to add to the position. It should not be in my plan. After all, we're throwing more decisions into the plan in the thick of the battle. The fewer decisions the better and more seamless the trade is executed from entry to exit. Again, however, all this is a matter of perception. Once I have a trade on it stands on it's own merits. I rarely add to the position in mid-stream. Another day trader may not have a problem with increasing the mix. If you DO increase the mix, one caveat would be never to build an inverted pyramid. Always keep the base of the pyramid the widest part of the trade. For example. If you start out buying 4 contracts and the market advances and pulls back part of the way.....don't add 6 contracts, add just two. Inverted pyramids have a nasty habit of tipping over.