Quote:
Originally Posted by daet
I believe the system you're working with is the familier 1,2,3 pivot breakout
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Correct. However, sometimes (especially on the 1 min) you will not see those "text book" 1-2-3 patterns. The key is price. Think about the floor traders, and tick readers. These guys are not visually drawing W's or M's in their heads... they're simply keeping a loose tally of the money flow and profit taking momentum. When the price breaks their last "mentally noted" value... they're in. Try this once with only the ticker window open... it's pretty interesting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by daet
The problem for me is identifying a valid pivot as there are allot of false pivots.
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Whatever pivot you deem to be valid - IS VALID. Be clear minded when you look at the 15 min for your set up. "What is my feeling about the general direction of the money flow?". "Does the movement have enough momentum for for me to grab 10 pips out of this deal?"
If I had to guess, Daet, I would say you are making a lot of trades in a single session? The reason I say this is because, I too, suffered from a similar ailment. In the beginning of the session I'd bang out 3 to 5 trades and be very impressed with myself. However, and you know how this story ends, by the end of a long night - 7 to 10 trades later... the chart stops communicating with you. And then, things turn really ugly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by daet
You would then stay long for the duration of the move up as long as the pivots formed on the way up are not violated.
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No. You would not stay long... you would call it a night, remember. This is why I precisely stated no more than 2 trades... preferably one. Forget that other jazz about letting your trade run, watching the trend line breaks. These concepts do work, but not in our context. This is day trading... we're trying to make money from the noise that's hidden in those daily bars.
Can we play a little game next week:
Let's pretend that I'm your boss. The first 3 posts of this thread was a briefing that you received from me upon your hiring. Every single night when you come in to work, I expect you to do the job I hired you for. I'm not paying you to be slick, I don't care about your previous techniques, and I definitely don't want you trading like a cowboy for my firm. You were hired to specifically follow the protocol of this firm. If you do a good job, you will be rewarded with a "cap-less" salary that will inflate beyond your wildest imagination. If you don't follow protocol... you will be fired. Here's the deal, I don't care if you're profitable or not... the only thing I care about is that you follow company guidelines.
What do you say? Do you want try to give this experiment a shot come Monday? If you say yes, I'll expect to see your trading log for next weeks session (an audit, of sorts).
Let me know either way.
MM