20200612
Long 1 RTY 1404.2, -1.5
Long 2 RTY 1401.0, +2.0, -0.3
Long 1 ES 3072.25, -1.75
Long 2 ES 3070.5, +4.5, +6.25
Long 1 NQ 9810.0, -3.25
Long 2 NQ 9807.5, 9807.5, -0.5, -0.5
Long 2 YM 25778, 25778, -12, -12
Long 2 YM 25772, 25772, +30, +30
Long 1 RTY 1391.8, +6.8
Long 1 RTY 1389.7, -0.2
Long 1 ES 3063.0, -1.75
Long 2 RTY 1387.5, 1387.5, +3.0, -0.7
Long 2 YM 25670, 25670, +30, -4
Long 1 NQ 9750.0, -3.25
Long 2 NQ 9736.0, 9736.0, -3.25, -3.25
Long 2 NQ 9732.0, 9732.0, -0.5, -0.5
Long 3 NQ 9720, 9720, 9720.0, +12.0, +12.0, +9.75
Long 1 ES 3014.25, -1.75
Long 1 YM 25520, -11
Long 3 YM 25503, 25503, 25503, -12, -12, -12
Long 3 YM 25451, 25451, 25451, -11, -11, -11
Long 4 YM 25447, 25447, 25447, 25447, +50, +50, -3, -3
Long 2 NQ 9664.25, 9664.25, +0.25, +0.25
Long 2 NQ 9658.0, 9658.0, -3.25, -3.25
Long 3 NQ 9645.0, 9645.0, 9645.0, -0.5, -0.5, -0.5
Long 2 ES 3011.5, 3011.5, -2.25, -2.25
Long 2 ES 3029.75, 3029.75, +10.25, +10.25
Long 2 RTY 1358.0, 1358.0, +10.6, +20.0
Long 2 NQ 9580.0, 9580.0, -3.25, -3.25
Long 2 NQ 9572.75, 9572.75, +30.0, +50.0
Total ES +21.5
Total YM +76
Total NQ +84.75
Total RTY +39.7
Volatility can be like a moth to the flame.. and you're not the flame... Today would most fairly be classified as over-trading. However, the trade models were reappearing so fast and the bounces so pronounced that I found it hard not to reenter...even after repeated stp-outs. How does one even approach such extreme volatility? Fair question. First, you must have a set of disparate technical indicators that identify zones of exhaustion. Support and Resistance are just worthless. Nothing holds. ...and that's just the point, of course. For if nothing is holding, then for the majority of traders, stops are being run, and when run suddenly through supposed supports, price action creates a vacuum. And into the largest vacuums come huge reversals. Remember, the Valhalla Corollary to the Douglas Principal, "...most of the money to be made in the markets is made at the places where most traders are being stopped out and proven wrong." This can be found in the little book True Self, by this author, available at Amazon.com)
A few techniques: have your numbers laid out in a grid well before the day starts. Once begun, it's too late to go looking for them. The ones I use can all be found in Pivots, Patterns and Intraday Swing Trades, also available Amazon.com. Use these against peaks in momentum as places from which the market is likely to reverse. Lead the market with limit orders just beyond these numbers, expecting exhaustion to both take them out, and then reverse after doing so. Trail the price spike with reverse stop-entry orders. You're trying to do either or both of two things. Catch the market as it reaches through your numbers to whole number extremes, and catch the sweep of the reversal early into its initial stage to that you can more easily move the stop-loss side of your ATM OCO order to about break-even.
'Expect the unexpected', as Heraclitus advised. That means you're going to get stopped out yourself on such extreme volatility days such as today. I use tight stops to allow this. Being stopped out is easy. Some traders will do anything to avoid it. I find it much easier to repeatedly reassess the gauges in the cockpit as the birds are hitting the windshield so as to see if I'm still in trade model intended, or I need to wait until it reforms at a greater extremes. Once the big reversal is in, give it rein. The bigger the stretch into extremes, the bigger the reversal back out. Look for your exit targets beyond previous pullbacks.
I'm amazed how most traders manage in almost the opposite way. They have no precise trade entry models to trigger from. They only have 'numbers', and believe that's the sum total of market decision criteria. If that's you, please send me all your numbers, so I can add them to places that are most likely to fail. Then, most traders tend to exit mechanically, although I also find big numbers in NQ profits hard to resist, +10, +20, +30,etc. But for the most part, I keep targets out of the way,
and then come to these whole numbers with stops as price moves through them. Therefore, exiting may be fairly described as artful, and even intuitive. Whereas, for most traders, exiting is mechanical. I leave the mechanics to Entries. There, I need the momentum, the exhaustion grid, and a little fractal algorithm study called Serial Sequent. When these disparate elements arrive simultaneously, the mechanics have arrived. There is no thinking. There is nothing intuitive or presumptive about it. I don't know where the market is going to go. I fly by instruments. It's always dark, or even worse. It's always hazy. It's my instruments that get me in. Whereas, it's landmarks of arrival that get me out. For just when it seems that all is clear and I've achieved some trend of confirmation, that's where other traders who wait for such things as confirmation in price to get in, allow me a way to get out while they do so.
...and a good weekend to all...
