Trailing problems - Day Trading: August 04, Intraday

Storm and calm

I stayed aloof of the morning volatility.... patience, patience, patience is a virtue.... Took my entries during the calm following the storm, with a lot of patience. I have changed my trailing stop method, but this one whipped me too into bad results.

The perfect entry

So, after the morning dip to 8550 (ohh, what a miss. schade), and the pullback to 8600, there immediately followed a neat Price Action set-up for short (marked on chart). I decided to wait for a better set-up, which I defined as one more pullback to 8600 and higher volume before falling. That perfect trade occurred, but you know there is nothing like perfect. So, I soon made a loss. But, as they say in Venezuela, lightning always strikes twice. As soon as there was a higher volume Pin Bar above 8600, I had my next perfect entry. This one moved, but my Trailing Stop got hit.

Trailing problems

Ignoring yesterday, on all the other days of these series, I have been able to catch (or at least identify) the top before the major down move of the day. Even yesterday, I can claim that I did identify the top... only decided not to act there. Despite catching the tops, I have not been able to maximize points because of poor trailing. I decided to trail differently today, but the results were no different.

Lightning struck twice again

The third trade was the imperfect entry. I was in a hurry to re-enter the down move, and did not wait for higher volumes on the M1 chart. Heck, I did not even wait for the bar to complete. Also, I thought that price had traded in the 8605-8587 band for too long, and there was pressure to go down - just another reason that I invented to go short. Immediately, a higher volume bar took out my Stop Loss. But it was a higher volume bar, good enough for me to re-enter at the same point... another perfect entry. All that these trades did was to reduce the points I earned. Trailing on Pivot Highs would have worked great today.... but who knows about tomorrow?

The bounce

There was a bounce without even testing 8550/Low of the Day. I was not happy, but the big green bar and the Price Action that followed was tempting, and I placed a long trigger there. Later cancelled it. When the price came back to that point, and did a small wriggle there, I entered long. This was another imperfect/impatient trade, but I got some points at auto-square-off.

Spot Price

The Spot 8550 was about 20 points above the last entry. I probably would not have entered if it was closer. During the day, Spot 8550 moved from below Previous Day's Close to above the 8590 Pivot Low area.

Note/Disclaimer:

1. If these notes do not not make sense to you, it's because they are mainly for my personal consumption. These notes make sense to me, and at some point I hope that my writing improves enough to make sense to others...

2. The volumes that I talk about in this post can be seen better on the M1 chart.