Intro: I am most certainly taking the correct backroom steps at the moment. By which I mean getting a trade plan together and thinking about a business plan etc. However it has become apparent in the last few days that I am struggling to get in on the M5 chart.
Observation: Trading today I felt that there was still some confusion as to what I was doing throughout the day. The broad strokes are there, I know I am shorting at supply/buying at demand and trading with a longer-term trend. This is fairly easy to implement on the H4 trend but when the H4 is down the M30 is up I'm often waiting for the simplest thing; M30 price returning to H4 S/D to enter a trade rather than drilling down to the M5 and trading price from am M30 into that H4 level. A good example of this happened today on the GU when I could've traded M5 price off a M30 level of demand up into an H4 level of supply.
Thoughts: I got to thinking how this could be avoided and thought that a written trade plan specific for the day would help IE.GU: Longterm/H4 trend down = label H4 supply = drill down to M30 price and wait for its return to this level to short into H4 demand...... Medium-term/M30 trend up = label M30 demand = drill down to M5 and wait for price to return to demand and buy into M30/H4 supply.Having said all that reading it back is quite a chore.
Another observation I've had is that I am spending all my time on the M30 charts so it's not surprising I'm not seeing any M5 trades, duh. So I could simply ID the H4 and M30 trends and label H4 S&D and M30 S&D then drill down to the M5 and trade price action to and from these levels, ideally trading M30 levels with the M30 trend and H4 levels with the H4 trend.
Also I could just stick to the M30 and H4 for the time being, results are better than they were when I was on the M5 and I can just trade the M30 trend and levels on the M30 chart.
Finally I could just stick to what I'm doing, allow myself to get better at it and expect that when I do I will naturally start venturing down into the M5 chart.
Summary: No real answers but some several thoughts to continue thinking on while trading, something will come of all of it.
Observation: Trading today I felt that there was still some confusion as to what I was doing throughout the day. The broad strokes are there, I know I am shorting at supply/buying at demand and trading with a longer-term trend. This is fairly easy to implement on the H4 trend but when the H4 is down the M30 is up I'm often waiting for the simplest thing; M30 price returning to H4 S/D to enter a trade rather than drilling down to the M5 and trading price from am M30 into that H4 level. A good example of this happened today on the GU when I could've traded M5 price off a M30 level of demand up into an H4 level of supply.
Thoughts: I got to thinking how this could be avoided and thought that a written trade plan specific for the day would help IE.GU: Longterm/H4 trend down = label H4 supply = drill down to M30 price and wait for its return to this level to short into H4 demand...... Medium-term/M30 trend up = label M30 demand = drill down to M5 and wait for price to return to demand and buy into M30/H4 supply.Having said all that reading it back is quite a chore.
Another observation I've had is that I am spending all my time on the M30 charts so it's not surprising I'm not seeing any M5 trades, duh. So I could simply ID the H4 and M30 trends and label H4 S&D and M30 S&D then drill down to the M5 and trade price action to and from these levels, ideally trading M30 levels with the M30 trend and H4 levels with the H4 trend.
Also I could just stick to the M30 and H4 for the time being, results are better than they were when I was on the M5 and I can just trade the M30 trend and levels on the M30 chart.
Finally I could just stick to what I'm doing, allow myself to get better at it and expect that when I do I will naturally start venturing down into the M5 chart.
Summary: No real answers but some several thoughts to continue thinking on while trading, something will come of all of it.
Since you are working on figuring out where you want to take trades (which is the right thing to do as its more important than the how), may I suggest the following reading to give you an idea of how to enter the trades once there:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/trading-markets/6151-reading-charts-real-time.html
"I could just stick to the M30 and H4 for the time being, results are better than they were when I was on the M5 and I can just trade the M30 trend and levels on the M30 chart." The major characteristics of those tiny time frames is false move(noise).I don`t go beyond 1hour and that is just for entry. My target is on daily support and resistance.
ReplyDeleteBosun
FxGlory remains my best broker since 2014.