20170324
Short 2 NQ 5383.5, 5383.5, -2.25, -2.25
Short 2 NQ 5389.0, 5389.3, -2.0, -2.0
Short 4 TF 1370.4, 1370.4, 1370.4, 1370.4, +0.7, +0.7, +3.0, +3.0
Short 2 TF 1359.8, 1360.0, +1.1, +0.7
Short 4 TF 1361.4, 1361.4, 1361.4, 1361.4, +0.7, +0.7, +2.3, +2.3
Total NQ -8.5
Total TF +15.2
Many, many years ago (I started trading futures in 1979) I took training in the S&P pit. It didn't take me long before I realized how unfit I was for the ordeal of the noise and the crowd. However, I did learn something very important that surprised me about pit traders. They tend to trade around the edges. If you relayed to them the axiom from the basic traders rule book that warns never to sell a new high or buy a new low, they'd just laugh at you. That's where they spend most of their time. And since many new traders believe the market is supposed to benefit them with a trend, trying to first define how a trend is determined and then trade only in that pre-determined direction is the main thrust of their efforts. And indeed, if most days were of the Persistent Trend Day model, the actions of taking breakouts in the perceived trend direction or buying narrow pullbacks to that trend would succeed on a regular basis. But it does not. Most days consolidate, correct, swing and overlap whatever trend can be perceived in previous action. So when I discovered Serial Sequent as the tool most likely to identify those breakouts that would fail, I looked for the extremes to trade into, fading the breakout as the market relaxes, and riding the reversal of climax action back in the opposing direction. That put me in sync with the market's action on some 80% of trading days. And once the technique of using rising sell-stops as entries for shorts and falling buy-stops as entries for longs became natural, catching fills as the market broke 'can't break' climax zones became common. Before that, I never knew such fills were possible. And even now, I'll come across the over-educated student who still insists they are not. ...oh, but how inflexible we become in our ways...
