Month: December 2012
Dec 21, 2012 – No End in Sight
Learn to Day-Trade the Emini S&P and Euro Futures – live with a full-time trader.
This video is designed for educational purposes only and to show some of our trade plan setups to reinforce our daily trade plan review.
To successful trading,
TraderShark
Info@TraderShark.com
Good evening traders, this is Brian with TraderShark.com, an educational website to learn how to trade the emini S&P futures. Today is Friday, December 21st, 2012.
And since you can hear my voice, obviously the world has not ended. However, last night around 7 to 7:30 I think the announcement from Boehner and his budget proposal had not passed the House and the Senate. And as a result we had a 50 point selloff in the S&P. Now again, this was last night.
So let’s go ahead and move forward to this morning. This morning the market opened up around 1418.75. That’s represented by this white dotted line right here. And we generally don’t trade from 9:30 to 9:45. It’s just a period of higher volatility. You know, the bulls and the bears are battling it back and forth. We do have one specific setup that we do take and this was in the gap fill direction. We did have an opportunity to get long right there at about 9:36. Target 1 and target 2 were hit for a total of 13 ticks.
As we went on into the morning we had a lot of sideways movement. You can see this indicated here. And we took no trades until a nice little break out above the moving average, to the long side. Target 1 and target 2 hit for a total of 10 ticks. And then if you miss this entry here we have what’s called an auto wave. Here what’s called an extended wave trade. You’ll notice how the momentum indicator is in the overbought section. So you can do a market order long here. If not we had a specific limit order going in on the auto wave. And either one could have yielded 10 ticks. If you got both of them you could have yielded as much as 20 ticks on that trade.
We had price action move through the moving average to the downside. Nice pullback. Really didn’t get a valid entry until right there at about 10:52. And again, an opportunity for an aggressive trader. An opportunity for a conservative trader. Got a total of 7 ticks and that would have been on each one of those trades also.
As price action continued through we had another pullback. I generally don’t like to take two trading opportunities in a trend direction. And this was a third opportunity, so we cut our profit targets a little bit light. So we went for 2 ticks and 4 ticks for a total of 6 ticks before going into the next no trade zone.
From 11:30 until 1:15 Eastern Standard Time, again a period of higher volatility, lower volume. Remember today is options expiration and futures expiration and the last day prior to the Christmas holiday. Looking for a trading opportunity. We like to trade long if we have an opportunity from 1:30 until 2:00. Did not get a chance to get into this trade here. Found our end, it was there around 2:00. Just what we watch pretty consistently. A total of 8 ticks to the downside.
Working our way back down to the moving average. Got out of the position. A lot of sideways motion. And then here we go going into the close of the day, from 3:30 to 4:00 nice run. Total of 11 ticks on one trade. Total of 7 ticks on another. Cut it short here because we were running into yesterday’s low. We weren’t sure whether it was going to push up through or not. But as a result we had a conservative close into a nice holiday season.
I want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas for those of you that celebrate it. A wonderful holiday season. I’ll see you back here on Wednesday morning, on December 26th.
Link to Video and Transcription
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time. Past performance is not an indication of future results.
Improve Your Trading Results!
I recently had some questions from traders asking how to turn around their trading results.
Notice I did not say “Losing Streak.” I prefer to say “Trading Results.” By simply changing a couple words, notice how that sounds and makes you feel. Changing your vocabulary plays an important role in conditioning yourself for a successful business.
Improve Your Trading Results?
1. Understand that losses are normal and that everyone goes through them, even the professionals.
2. Know that challenging trading days will eventually end. If they don’t, then you need to make a correction in your trading style and methodology.
Take a deep breath and relax. Go do something you haven’t done in awhile that you enjoy. This will help clear your mind. If nothing else, take a nice walk in the woods or around a lake where nature abounds.
3. Go back and review the trades that did not produce winning results. Feel the pain again. See what you did right and determine what you could have done differently.
4. Ask yourself new empowering questions. For example, “What can I do different next time to make this a winning trade?” You will be amazed how your brain answers these questions. It is a conditioning process. If you do not condition yourself to win, you are conditioning yourself to lose.
You will notice that most traders say, “Oh, why did I do that?” or “I’ll never get this to work.” Bad questions and bad statements… and… your brain will answer those questions. Change the questions you ask yourself to be constructive rather than destructive to yield improved results!
5. Go back to simulator trading. Make it fun, give your significant other $5 or $10 each time you lose a trade. Wouldn’t it be better to give it to him or her rather than to the market.
And whether you know it or not, you just created an accountability partner. You may or may not like this, but it will certainly help make you a better trader. With someone holding you accountable, you will tend to pay more attention to your trading as a business rather than just a hobby.
6. Go back to the basics. No matter what trading system you use, focus on one trade setup at a time and master it before proceeding on to the next trade setup. In my case, I like to use the CCI and the ADX combination to support winning results. Remember to take quality trades, not quantity trades.
7. Stay with the trend, NO COUNTER-TREND TRADES. You have been told this time and time again and yet, some of you still take counter-trend trades. Counter-trend trades barely have a 50% win-loss ratio. Enter a trend trade on a pullback. Buy on fear, sell on greed.
Observe where price action is in relationship to the moving averages. Use a directional indicator with moving averages to help keep you on the trending side of the market.
8. Reduce your contract size. Trade only 1 contract per $3000 in your trading account. You need to preserve the capital in your account in order to be able to come back and trade another day. At the top of your trade log, there is a profit target and loss limit. Use them and stick to them.
9. Reduce the number of trades you take per day. Learn to SOH (sit on hands) more often. I have noticed that when I trade 10 or more times a day, I tend to lose more money. This is sometimes called “revenge trading.” However, when I trade 2 to 5 times a day, I end up in a much more profitable bottom line.
10. And last but not least, go back to the Trading Manual and review the step by step instructions. One step that is very important is your trading environment.
Inform your “outside influences” that you still love them, but during this time, you need to concentrate on your business. I cannot count the times I have been told that “I missed a trade because someone was talking to me” or “I had to let the dog out” or “My spouse just came in to ask me a question” … you get the picture.
I hope that helps you re-focus back to trading as a business and not just a hobby.
To Successful Trading,
Brian Rehler
Trained Life Coach and Trading Mentor
www.TraderShark.com
Info@TraderShark.com
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time. Past performance is not an indication of future results.
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To read their December newsletter, click here, also endorsing TraderShark.
To Successful Investing,
TraderShark
Dec 18, 2012 – Santa is Coming!
Learn to Day-Trade the Emini S&P and Euro Futures – live with a full-time trader.
This video is designed for educational purposes only and to show some of our trade plan setups to reinforce our daily trade plan review.
To successful trading,
TraderShark
Info@TraderShark.com
Good evening traders, this is Brian with TraderShark.com, an educational website to learn how to trade the emini S&P futures. Today is Tuesday, December 18th, 2012.
The market opened up here this morning at 1427.50 represented by this white dotted line. We generally don’t trade from 9:30 until 9:45. Coming out of the no trade zone, an opportunity to get long right here right at about 10:18. Trade for a total of 6 ticks. Target 1 and target 2 were hit. And then shortly thereafter another auto wave setup. Notice the green dot jumped in here for a total of 17 ticks. Some people that had a trailer followed this thing up and as we followed it up we had a nice little break out of our opening range. We had what’s called an extended wave trade long. Another extended wave trade long, and just continued to push higher.
We had what’s called a hook pattern appear in the Shark Den. It ran its way into a couple different of the Shark bands and we were trailing it. Working our way up into this flat level here right around 1434. And did not catch any of this little extended move before going into the no trade zone.
No trade zone from 11:30 until 1:15 Eastern Standard Time. It’s just a period of lower volume, higher volatility. As we got in here I want you to notice, as this momentum indicator got into an extended overbought position that market just continued to push up deeper. Now we don’t trade during the no trade zone. Some traders do, I choose not to.
Coming out of the no trade zone we had a move below the moving average. Across. An opportunity to get, got target 1 off. And then started to see it pulling back, flattened out for minus 2 ticks, a total of 0 on that particular trade. And then another clean pullback right here. Did not get in on this one. Notice the entry. We had a nice little pullback here. Was able to just snag a little, about 6 ticks on this particular trade, 2 ticks and 4 ticks to the downside. Wanted a deeper pullback, but when this momentum pushed to the oversold position we knew it was just going to continue on in that direction. And right there pulling back from the highs of the day.
Sideways it didn’t look too choppy, but it really didn’t give us any other buying opportunity until right there in the end. We had an auto indicator long. We had a feeling the market was going to push back up into the highs of the day. Ended right around 1443 and then went sideways. So we got a total of 17 ticks on that last trade.
To learn more about these and more advanced trade setups or to get a copy of the Trader Shark trading manual, please visit TraderShark.com. Thank you. Have a great evening and I’ll see you in the Shark Den in the morning.
Link to Video and Transcription
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time. Past performance is not an indication of future results.
Dec 17, 2012 – Patience Pays Off – Trading Video
Learn to Day-Trade the Emini S&P and Euro Futures – live with a full-time trader.
This video is designed for educational purposes only and to show some of our trade plan setups to reinforce our daily trade plan review.
To successful trading,
TraderShark
Info@TraderShark.com
Good evening traders, this is Brian with TraderShark.com, an educational website to learn how to trade the emini S&P futures. Today is Monday, December 17th, 2012.
The market opened up this morning at 1411.75 represented by the white dotted line. We generally don’t trade in the no trade zone from 9:30 until 9:45 unless we have a certain circumstance setup and we did in this case. Shut off for target 1 got stopped out for minus 2 ticks.
Coming out of the no trade zone, if you did not take this trade it’s because there was no trend established at this point. We did, however, have an opportunity to get long. Target 1 and target 2 hit for a total of 6 ticks.
Going on into the morning we had a lot of sideways movement. There was still an opening range that we were not able to break out of. We had setups. Notice our auto wave trade indicator kicked off. We were below the moving averages. Another auto wave kicked off, below the moving averages. We saw a lot of sideways consolidation. There was really no direction at this point.
Then just prior to getting into the no trade zone. We had an opportunity for an aggressive trade long. And another aggressive trade long. The first aggressive trade long, I had a total of 4 contracts going long at this point. I took a minus 4 ticks. And the next contract we were able to hit target 1 and target 2 all the way up into 14 ticks for that second trade.
We’re then going into a no trade zone which is a period of time of high volatility and lower volume. Usually choose not to trade during that timeframe from 11:30 until 1:15 Eastern Standard Time. Coming out of the no trade zone we had a nice break through the moving average, pullback. Entry target 1, target 2 for a total of 6 ticks. And then generally won’t take a trade current trend like this, but I did anyways because of the auto wave kicked in. Target 1 was touched, was not filled, and then I forced a stop out at minus 2 ticks for 2 contracts. Total of 4 ticks.
Then at 2:00 we generally have what’s called an opportunity to avoid taking any long positions. And this set up nice and clean for a short opportunity for a total of 10 ticks. First contract, second contract, out for a total of 10 ticks. We then were below the moving averages, but the auto wave kicked in long. Waited. This is what patience is a virtue. Waited and we knew, we talked about the 1426.75 which is the gap fill from Thursday afternoon. We mentioned that this morning at about 9:30. And sure enough we started to see the opportunity. Everything was in our favor. Launch point from 1419.25 to 1419.75. Possibly as low as 1417.25. If you got in here around 1419.5, first target was 4 ticks. Scaled out up here at around 1424.50. And then if you had a trailing stop, you could have followed this thing all the way up into 1426.75. And notice after-market hours it actually went up to, we had the third Shark band up there at around 1430.
To learn more about these and more advanced trade setups, or to get a copy of the Trader Shark trading manual, please visit TraderShark.com. Thank you. Have a great night and I’ll see you in the Shark Den in the morning.
Link to Video and Transcription
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time. Past performance is not an indication of future results.
Happy Holidays from TraderShark
Traders,
Here is to your family during this Holiday Season, click here to view your ecard.
To Successful Trading,
TraderShark
Dec 14, 2012 – SOH (Sit On Hands)
Learn to Day-Trade the Emini S&P and Euro Futures – live with a full-time trader.
This video is designed for educational purposes only and to show some of our trade plan setups to reinforce our daily trade plan review.
To successful trading,
TraderShark
Info@TraderShark.com
Good evening traders, this is Brian with TraderShark.com, an educational website to learn how to trade the S&P emini futures. Today is Friday, December 14th, 2012.
We are in the first day of the March contract. Nothing is surprising at this point. I want to show you a longer timeframe chart. This is our opening range. And I want you to notice how price action just stayed within opening range. And I do have a little webinar that we give talking about chum, or what’s called shark bait, and that’s exactly what we saw all day today. When price action remains within this opening range, there’s no break out one way or the other, a lot of indecisiveness. Volume was light. We’re going into a Friday afternoon. There’s literally no trades that went on today.
Now let’s look at a lower timeframe chart. Okay, so this is our lower timeframe chart. 9:30 to 9:45 we tend not to trade. It’s just a period of choppiness. And what you see here is this 1410.25 is the opening price for today. 1409.75 is yesterday’s low. And again, being the actually the second day of the contract. The contract rollover started yesterday at 9:30 in the morning. We didn’t really see the volume kick in until this morning when we have a full move over to the March contract.
Coming out of the no trade zone. What you saw earlier was a higher timeframe chart that kept us within a opening range. However, if you just simply use the auto wave indicator. Here the auto wave indicator fired off long, but we were below the moving average, so you would not have taken that trade.
This would have been a nice trade short. Follow just the auto wave trade long. Would have taken a little while, but there’s your long position. You’re below the moving averages. You may or may not have tried to get on this one. I know we were trying to work our way into the higher range, the opening range. And with that I would not have taken these trades either, but I want you to see how the auto waves, these little dots, push up higher into profitable trades.
Another auto wave short. Again, would have taken maybe first target off. Possibly gotten stopped out. First target off. Second target hit going into the no trade zone. We have a no trade zone from 11:30 until 1:15 Eastern Standard Time. I want you to notice how narrow this no trade zone is. That’s just showing there’s little or no volume. When you have low volume, the market tends to be choppy ripsawy if you will, and takes out your stop runs.
Here’s another auto wave short. This would have been a failed trade, 11.75, so it would have taken us out by 1 tick for a full stop out if you had taken that auto wave. Again, I was not taking any of these trades. Look at also, I want you to see, we’re stuck within 1 point of opening price and yesterday’s lows. This would have been a follow through once you broke through the moving averages. Nice pullback. Entry for a continuation or follow through. But there’s not an auto wave and that was pretty much it for the day.
So you saw the higher timeframe chart. I always encourage people to use a higher timeframe chart to see where the market’s going and then use your lower timeframe chart for entries and exit.
I hope that helps you for the day. Have a great weekend. Make sure you get all your Christmas shopping done. We’ll see you bright and early on Monday morning.
Link to Video and Transcription
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time. Past performance is not an indication of future results.
Contract Rollover
Traders,
Please remember to roll over your contracts today from December “Z” to March “H” for 2013.
Contract Rollover began yesterday at 09:30 EST and we will be trading the March contract today on the ES and EC/E6 futures.
Your contract symbol for the ES could be either ESH13 or ESH3, depending on your broker and charting software.
To successful trading,
Brian Rehler
TraderShark
Learn to Trade with the Sharks,
Without Getting Eaten!
Trading Futures, Options on Futures, and retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. You should carefully consider whether trading is suitable for you in light of your circumstances, knowledge, and financial resources. You may lose all or more of your initial investment. Opinions, market data, and recommendations are subject to change at any time. Past performance is not an indication of future results.