20151022
Short 2 YM 17210, 17210, -7, -7
Short 1 TF 1148.3, -0.1
Short 1 YM 17228, -0
Short 1 NQ 4460.25, -2.0
Short 2 NQ 4461.25, 4461.25, -2.0, +2.0
Short 2 YM 17250, 17250, +7, -7
Short 2 TF 1153.9, 1153.9, +0.7, +2.0
Long 2 TF 1150.9, 1150.2, -1.4, -0.7
Long 2 TF 1149.6, 1149.6, +2.0, +3.6
Long 1 TF 1149.5, +2.0
Total YM -14
Total NQ -2.0
Total TF +8.1
At one point today, in a rather nasty pullback, my initial position got blown out. The structure was right for the model, as was the momentum of the True Trend Indicator™. As I usually use buy-stops in a falling market as an entry technique as price completes a model, a false start back up today engaged the position, only to thrust back down sharply a minute or so later. One argument might be to just use bigger protective stops in the ATM strategy and try to survive such volatility. And that's a fair argument. But I find that I think more clearly when on the sidelines. And although a bit painful, that moment of being NOT in a position that against me offers better clarity. So I don't mind getting stp'd out. It gives enough time to assess if the elements of the model are still in place, although now at a different level of the Pivot Exhaustion Grid. If so, I get right back on the saddle. And if you are getting use to watching a tick bar chart tied to your price ladder at those moments of entry instead, say your 3 or 5 min bar charts, you can see the thrusts downward a little more clearly, along with the holes they can leave at the thinner points of liquidity. That kind of action, the kind that blew me out today for instance, tends to do two things simultaneously. First, it scares you into thinking the current trend is not over and adds to the appraisal emotionally that there's far more yet to come; and secondly, it tends to exhaust the move and bring finality, just at the level mysteriously designed to cause stop-outs to most of the current players--who, like me today, got in too early thinking they knew which way the market was ready to go. In other words, the action and consequence to your position causes a 'feeling' exactly opposite to what that final thrust really is. As in life in general, including politics and ethics, "Fade your feelings, Luke" is what Yoda should have been teaching the young Skywalker.
