Wed Mar 27 Trades & Journal

20130327
Short 1 NQ 2780.5, -1.0
Short 3 NQ 2782.75, 2782.5, 2782.75, -0.0, -1.0, -1.0
Long 1 TF 939.5, -0.0
Short 2 NQ 2780.0, 2787.25, +3.0, +2.0
Long 2 TF 937.2, 937.1, +0.5, -0.7
Long 3 NQ 2779.9, 2779.75, +2.0, +2.0, +4.0
Short 1 TF 938.9, -0.5
Short 2 TF 939.4, 939.4, +0.4, -0.4
Short 2 TF 940.5, 940.6, -1.0, -1.0
Short 2 TF 942.0, 942.0, -0.2, -0.2
Short 2 TF 942.0, 941.9, +0.9, +0.3
Short 1 TF 944.5, -0.7
Short 2 TF 944.9, 944.8, -0.3, -0.4
Total NQ +10
Total TF -3.3

Lack of patience can work both ways. First, it can spur you out of a position early before it has had a chance to fully develop towards possible targets. But just as deadly are those trades entered too early without the trade model fully in place, because you fear 'missing' the entry. And to add to the brine, any lingering recent memories of trades you actually did miss because you were 'too' patient motivate you not to let that happen again. So, you become anxious. Today, I took a 2 contract position on the short side of TF before the signal really came. I got clever and borrowed the signal from another contract that seem to be fulfilling first. But a minute or two later, the TF played catch-up and the stp's--which were modest at the time of entry to just above the nearby resistance level, slipped badly as price action spiked violently. By the time I was finished 'getting even' with those ugly TF stp-outs, I had given back all of a nice 10 pt profit in NQ trades...and then some. Wait for the setups to develop and the signals truly appear. In markets with such dramatic divergence and index bifurcation, there's no need to be borrowing signals, as the contracts just aren't in close enough sync of trend. Be patient. So what if you miss a few trades. That costs you no capital, and opportunities are always just around the next turn.

I'll be back next Wednesday, Apr 3. A Happy and Joyful Easter weekend to all.

Tues Mar 26 Trades & Journal

20130326
Short 1 TF 947.3, -0.4
Short 2 TF 947.9, 947.8, -0.4, -0.5
Short 2 YM 14463, 14463, +3, -2
Long 1 TF 946.7, -0.4
Short 1 TF 946.3, -0.3
Long 2 TF 944.9, 945.0, +0.7, +1.3
Short 1 TF 946.9, -0.3
Long 2 TF 945.5, 945.3, +0.9, +0.5
Long 1 TF 944.1, -0.2
Long 1 NQ 2790.0, +3.0
Total YM +1
Total NQ +3.0
Total TF +0.9

A few too many stp-outs again today, but none of them were outside the Trade Plan. However, I did miss two trades within the Trade Plan that should have been taken. One, I simply missed a fill, and it reversed too quickly for me to chase. That happens. But the other, I balked on talking, without anything more than a predisposition as to the trend... and that's a clear violation of the Douglas Premise. Read the Self Recognition piece from the website for more information on that the Premise, and the Premise Corollaries that keep us from making the trades we should take, and suck us into those we shouldn't. On a positive note, it's always a good thing to return to trading after an unsuccessful day and at least show a profit, if only a miniscule one. Two losing days in a row in my Trade Plan and I have to start the third day on the simulator until back in sync with profitable calls. Will be trading tomorrow as the last day in this week, returning to the markets Wednesday next. Keep to your trade plan!

Mon Mar 25 Trades & Journal

20130325
Short 2 TF 946.6, 946.9, -1.3, -1.0
Short 2 NQ 2803.25, 2803.25, -1.25, -1.25
Short 2 YM 14478, 14478, -3, -7
Short 2 TF 949.2, 949.2, -0.1, -0.1
Long 2 YM 14474, 14474, -5, -5
Total YM -20
Total NQ -2.5
Total TF -2.5

Smackdown! Just a glance at the charts today will reveal a huge volatility spike in all indices across the board. But it doesn't matter how correct my short signals were for the ensuing reversal. It only matters that I got stp'd out and lost my daily loss limit trying to get established for the trip down. Once reached, that loss limit kicks me out of real trading, and if I want to continue meeting the challenge of such a morning, I have to do it on the simulator. I love the volatility. It makes the breakout plays pop, and the inflection signals for breakdown triggers on the way down of the big collapse were sure hits and immediate payoffs... but the trading plan overrides everything, and ignoring loss limits is how many traders blow an entire week's worth of profits. Read the ebook Self Recognition from the website. The 'Accountant' will blow any amount of money trying to get back his losses. But the Trader is the Rule of Law. Live to trade another day. I'll be off and away from the markets this Thursday through next Tuesday, hopefully back by Wednesday of next week. A Joyful Easter to all.

Fri Mar 22 Trades

Trade Summary
20130322
Short 1 TF 942.9, +1.3
Long 1 TF 941.4, +1.2
Short 1 TF 943.8, -0.3
Short 1 NQ 2785.75, +2.0
Total NQ +2.0
Total TF +2.2

Thurs Mar 21 Trades


20130321
Short 1 TF 944.4, -0.3
Short 2 TF 945.1, 945.1, +0.5, -0.4
Short 1 TF 945.8, -0.0
Short 2 TF 945.4, 945.7, +0.4, +1.0
Long 1 TF 941.5, +1.0
Short 1 YM 14367, -3
Short 1 YM 14379, -5
Short 1 NQ 2775.75, -1.0
Total YM -8
Total NQ -1.0
Total TF +2.2

Wed Mar 20 Trades & Journal

20130320
Long 1 YM 14455, -7
Long 2 TF 945.2, 945.0, +1.4, +.5
Short 2 NQ 2800.25, 2800.00, +2.0, +1.75
Short 1 TF 946.1, +1.0
Total YM -7
Total NQ +3.75
Total TF +2.9

Pre-FOMC action is often a quiet affair leading up to the 2pm statements, but narrow range trading does not always deny profits. Serial Sequent Wave Method produces signals regardless of whether action is impulsive or corrective, and unlike Elliott Wave, makes no distinction. Trade whats in front of you, and temper your profit expectations should action prove stilted and contained. Stay disciplined. I favor the 1st frame of the day, from the Open to about 11:15am ET, because it usually produces the best volatility. Although I often return for the FOMC period for the extra volatility it usually produces, today I must be somewhere else. Good trading to all.

Tues Mar 19 Trades & Journal

Trade Summary
20130319
Short 2 YM 14413, 14413, +6, -0
Long 1 TF 945.1, -0.1
Short 2 TF 947.9, 947.6, +1.3, +0.4
Long 2 YM 14428, 14426, -0, -1
Long 1 NQ 2794.5, -0.25
Long 2 TF 944.2, 944.3, -0.2, -0.4
Long 2 NQ 2787.25, 2787.0, -1.25, -1.0
Long 3 TF 942.6, 942.7, 942.2, -0.0, -0.2, +0.4
Long 1 TF 942.2, +1.0
Total YM +6
Total NQ -2.5
Total TF +2.2

In trading, we don't predict. Prediction is useless. In fact, it is worse. Prediction fixes our expectations. At ValhallaFutures, we repeat the Douglas Premise almost like a mantra. "Most of the money that is lost in the markets is lost by traders who thought they knew which way the market was supposed to go." Instead of prediction, we use positioning. At certain junctures in market action, the market could be set to go either way. It's a sort of battle zone for the trend, and the best way to trade at such junctures is to let the market do the talking about where it wants to go. When discussing time cycles, such price junctures are referred to as Inversions. In terms of wave or fractal structure, such junctures are referred to as Inflections. For instance, the raw signals for a trader when some index has fallen in price to complete a wave fractal at a support zone might be 'Buy', with 'Stp n Reverse' back into shorts, should this area give way to further breakage, perhaps after a small bounce or pause pattern.

But so many breakouts fail. And nothing is more discouraging to play a breakout and get stp'd out immediately when it fails. So when constructing a trade plan, you must include appropriate filters to the Stp-n-Reverse side of the trade, filters that should require you to take certain breakouts with a high probability of success, and prevent you entering those with less likely prospects for success.

Our trading course is conducted in a continuing rotation from Lesson Session I thru 10, and then start all over again. Breakout filters are discussed frequently, and those that occurred today which produced such huge bear gains but were not part of my trading plan will come front and center in trade plan considerations, as a potential bear market rotates. Stay focused and stick to your plan. Changes to your trade plan should not be considered lightly. Remember, once committed to your plan, you will need to take those new trade concepts regardless of your opinion as to where the market is trying to go.

Mon Mar 18 Trades & Journal

20130318
Short 2 NQ 2776.25, 2776.0, +2.0 +3.0
Short 2 YM 14397, 14401, +6, -2
Short 2 NQ 2782.0, 2781.5, -0.25, -0.5
Short 2 TF 944.1, 943.9, +0.7, +1.5
Total NQ +4.25
Total YM +4
Total TF +2.2

Divergence and leadership can be useful for trend analysis. They can also be very tricky, especially in a market climate where rotation and froth rule action, often associated with tops. Be flexible throughout the session to shifts in leadership where what was formerly weak becomes strong and what was earlier leading becomes aggard. Trade what's in front of you. Resist the temptation for interpreting the market the way you wish it to be. Accept the outcome. Accept the day for what it is. It's offering you plenty of trade opportunity, although not perhaps in the way you expected it to be, or the way you'd like to see it. See it for what it is. Each market index segment should still fulfill a model in your trade plan before committing funds to a position. Stay disciplined. The market will tell you what it's doing if your methods have concept models that correspond. If market turns are occurring too often without a corresponding signal from your set of concepts, then your concepts and methods are yet incomplete, and you need to expand your understanding of available methods.

Fri Mar 15 No Trades / Vacation Day

Thurs Mar 14 Trades

20130314
Short 2 YM, 14441, 14441, -3, -7
Short 2 TF 043.3, 943.3, -4, -7
Short 2 TF 943.9, 943.9, -0.3, -0.3
Short 3 TF 943.8, 944.0, 944.0, +0.2, +.4, +1.0
Long 1 ES 1552.5, -0.75
Long 1 NQ 2796.5, +3.0
Short 1 TF 945.9, -0.0
Total YM -21
Total NQ +3.0
Total TF +1.0

Wed Mar 13 Trades & Journal

20130313
Long 2 YM 14385, 14385, -0, -0
Long 2 YM 14359, 14356, -2, +7
Long 1 TF 934.0, +0.9
Long 1 NQ 2783, +3.0
Short 1 TF 937.5, -0.2
Short 1 NQ 2795.5, +2.0
Total YM +5
Total NQ +5.0
Total TF +0.7

In order to handle the emotions of trading, you need a rule for almost everything. That way, you leave little to intuition or fear when managing and entering positions. Even trailing stp-loss orders need a rule... or should I say especially stp-loss orders deserve a rule. Mine is simple, when I stick to it. When in a mini-Russell trade, for instance, I move the stp-loss to about b/e (break-even)when it moves a point in my direction. And although I desire to trail the stop to +1 if it continues on in my direction, I should not actually move the stop until it has zigzag'd higher, allowing first to be threatened by such a pullback towards my stop. But today, after entering at a perfect entry signal below the overnight low, price reacted with a great snap back up for a +1.5 favor, but still shy of an initial exit target closer to +2.0. So what did I do? Did I wait and suffer a threatening pullback to my b/e stp-loss order? If I had, I would have gotten that better target and even higher had I been a little patient. But no, I immediately moved my stp-loss up to +0.9, not wanting to give up too much of an almost target goal. ...and that's exactly all I got. Follow your rules. If you follow your rules and the rules are good, then the consequences will be better for the bottom line, even if the market doesn't cooperate all the time. Stay disciplined and your rules will remove the fear factor.

Tues Mar 12 Trades & Journal

20130312
Short 2 NQ 2802.25, 2801.5, +2.0, -2.0
Short 2 TF 938.1, 938.1, +0.5, -0.7
Short 2 NQ 2804.25, 2804.25, +2.0, +4.75
Short 1 YM 14396, -5
Short 2 TF 939.0, 939.1, +1.2, +0.5
Short 1 YM 14407, +15
Total YM +10
Total NQ +6.75
Total TF +1.5

Although the separate index contracts can tell you a lot about the trend via their divergence or convergence to a common trend, they nonetheless must be traded separately. Today was a perfect example at the highs of how each could top out at different times, and short entries taken separately as the signals occurred. Using a plan that partials out of the 1st contract in order to pay for the 2nd can keep you out of trouble when the initial leg and faux trend wants another leg up to stop out the shorts and gather in fresh longs. The net result should be about break even on entry signals that fail to produce a turn. Have patience. Stay with your plan, and when the next set of signals appear, re enter the position, using the same strategy. Eventually, the signals stick and the second contract provides a good payoff. Then when the 2nd trend direction sets in, more likely the true trend, you can measure the inflection levels where to take exit profits, and through which to re enter the shorts for greater extensions. Have a plan, and trade the plan.

Mon Mar 11 Trades & Journal

Trade Summary
20130311
Short 1 TF 935.9, -0.4
Short 2 TF 936.8, 937.3, -1.0, -0.4
Short 1 TF 937.7, +1.0
Long 1 TF 936.4, -0.4,
Long 1 TF 936.4, +0.7
Long 2 TF 935.7, 935.6, +0.5, +1.0
Short 2 YM 14338, 14338, -5, -5
Short 1 TF 938.2, +0.7
Total YM -10
Total TF +1.7

Using the Valhalla Futures method combines a wave structure target with a price level from the Support/Resistance Grid. But sometimes a wave will create one big swoon of a push, incongruent with its previous nearby action. When so doing, price will push through one price level for possible entry to another, and possibly putting you in and stopping you out of a trade in the process. It is not cavalier in such cases to re enter the trade at the next price level, as long as the wave structure remains in its contributing signal zone. But this type of trading can look more like revenge trading to the outsider, and may even feel like it to the Trader himself. Know your plan. If you stay within that plan and that plan allows for certain contigencies that are not subjective but instead are rule bound, then re-entering a trade you have been stp'd out of is the right thing to do. But re-working the plan in midstream to mentally justify a trade re-entry is not. Stay disciplined. Trade the plan.

Fri Mar 8 Trades

20130308
Long 2 YM 14312, 14312, -8, -8
Long 2 TF 932.5, 932.7, +1.0, +1.4
Long 1 TF 932.3, -0.5
Long 1 TF 931.4, +1.2
Long 1 TF 931.8, +1.1
Total YM -16
Total TF +4.2

Thurs Feb 7 Trades

20130307
Long 1 TF 928.7, +1.2
Short 1 TF 930.0, +1.0
Short 1 TF 931.2, +1.0
Total TF +3.2

Tues Feb 6 Trades


20130306
Short 1 TF 930.5, -0.5
Short 2 TF 930.8, 930.7, +0.7, +0.5
Long 1 NQ 2796.5, +3.0
Short 1 YM 14283, +10
Long 1 YM 14270, -3
Long 1 YM 14265, +9
Short 1 NQ 2794.5, -0.0
Total NQ +3
Total YM +16
Total TF +0.7

Tues Mar 5 Trades & Journal

20130305
Short 1 TF 924.4, -0.3
Short 2 TF 924.3, 924.5, +0.7, +1.0
Short 1 TF 922.7, -0.0
Short 3 YM 14216, 14215, 14215, +1, -2, +2
Short 1 TF 925.4, -0.7
Short 1 TF 926.0, +0.7
Short 2 NQ 2790.0, 2789.75, +2.0, -0.5
Short 1 YM 14242, -2
Short 1 TF 927.3, +0.5
Short 1 TF 928.2, -0.0
Short 2 YM 14266, 14267, +7, -2
Long 1 TF 926.9, -0.4
Total NQ +1.5
Total YM +5
Total TF +1.5

The market has a way of testing your patience against your trading plan to the very limits. Today, the big celebration in all time new Dow highs was enough to keep any trader cautious about standing in front of it until it was done. But sell signals and trade opportunities in your plan can't be ignored just because of something so subjective. Since there were no real breakout signals to jump on board with after the opening prices, my trading plan left me only with fades. A final signal to sell short in either or both the YM and the TF contracts came with very clear Trade Plan specifics, but after it retested the highs for a third time in the TF, I lost faith on it and bailed out at b/e, only to watch it fall 3 1/2 pts to support. You have to be patient, and the endurance of that patience must last past the point where the market wears most traders down. Stick with your plan. If you play simply not to lose, you won't end up winning.

Mon Mar 4 Trades


20130304
Long 1 NQ 2740.75, +2.0
Long 1 NQ 2740.75, +2.0
Long 1 YM 14025, -2
Long 1 YM 14018, -0
Long 2 TF 912.1, 912.2, -0.2, +0.5
Total YM -2
Total NQ +4.0
Total TF +0.3

Fri Mar 1 Trades & Journal

20130301
Short 2 TF 900.1, 900.5, -0.0 -0.0
Short 1 TF 900.6, -0.0
Long 1 TF 900.2, +0.8
Short 1 TF 904.5, -0.4
Long 1 TF 902.6, -0.7
Long 2 TF 902.0, 901.8, -0.7, -0.3
Long 2 TF 901.2, 901.1, +0.8, +1.4
Long 1 TF 906.2, +1.0
Total TF +1.9

Every day is unique. No two charts are exactly alike. And yet a trading plan can account for the conditions of a general model that repeats itself in the market place again and again. Take trading the 10am and 9:55am econ reports. This is not for the faint of heart. You must have rules that keep you from getting into trouble and making the obvious mistakes. One well known vendor of software actually advises bracketing the market just before the news is released, with the idea that the breakout can be captured by fills just as it's breaking. Ha! Just try that a few times and see what it gets you. It might look fine on paper, or in the 1-min bar charts on your desktop software, but in reality, there 's probably a huge hole where there were no fills from the moment the news broke til the tip of the spike where the news first settled. After that, price tends to pull back to at least the breakout level, but sometimes much further, sometimes returning to the original trend and then creating new prices extremes in what is actually the opposite direction that the news broke to in the initial moments. How then, can you play the news, you ask? By understanding the market is only spring loaded by the news to fulfill the course of wave patterns it was destined to do anyway. That's right. Read that one again. Efficient Market Theory is a lie. The news does not change the trend. It only fulfills it with more volatility. In order to play the news, you'll have to understand Wave Theory according to the Rules of Serial Sequent (Elliott Wave won't be much help.) You can watch Webinar #1 on the ValhallaFutures website to see some examples of pre-news plays, but to learn Serial Sequent, you'll have to enroll in our course. Once understood, you can incorporate the rules of Sequent into a trade plan that allows you to trade both before and after the news, when a Serial Sequent Wave entry would have been signalling a trade anyway.