Review August

A slightly bullish market, with sudden drops and rallys. Just one big buy and hold rally that happend as usual in the 3. part of the month. The 2 min elliot wave system with 56 trades made about 1000 points, the 10 min with 32 trades about 600 points, the 60 min with 4 trades 400 points

For crude oil thing look more bearish now, a clear multi day double top makes me trading this instrument more and more on the downside. The system to buy on blue and sell on red and exit on the polygonal moving average change made about 1000 Poins with 9 trades.

31th Monday Up, Side, Down, Side

High of the Day: Prior Day Low
Morning Reversal at: Prior Day Low at 5.08 am
US Market Open Move ended at: S2 at 9.5s am
Low of the Day: S2
Close of the Day: Camarilla L4

Loss -5 Points Elliot Wave
Profit 63 Points ART Method

Today we had only one long setup using the elliot wave method, because I am not taking short signals below camarilla L3 level, it would have been pretty much a breakeven day if I would just have traded with the elliot wave method. But currencies, gold and crude oil did trend very well and not to forget scalping DAX earned also some points.

With scalping 54 points in the morning, no news so just trading after 9.30 made another 9 points.

Tradelist

4th Week of August

This week was very difficult to trade with the elliot wave method, as lots of news always interrupted the patterns. So Monday, Wednesday and Friday pretty choppy only scalping was really profitable these days. On Tuesday and Thursday however the two elliotwave trades on 10 Min Chart worked out. Also notice the targets for Thursdays Lows was predictable, what was not predictable was the volatility which obviously stops out every trend based system that trails the stop.

So to make it short, discretionary trading becomes more and more fun for me, not only I dont miss good moves, but also I can protect my profits better, than waiting for imaginary targets that seldom get hit.

28th Friday

High of the Day: R1
Morning Reversal at: R1 at 5.10 am
US Market Open Move ended at: R1 at 9.38 am
Low of the Day: Open
Close of the Day:

Loss 0 Points Elliot Wave
Profit 84 Points ART Method

This morning I was very patient waiting for the breakout to the upside as I am now only taking the signals not on inside bars but closes above red or blue signal bars. At 4 am I finally got into a long position that got me 20 Points profit. What I did not do was taking the 2nd swing up on 4.32 am as I thought it was too late, the golden rule to trade the trend as long as there is a double top I will follow next time.

The 6 am to 7.30 scalping was also very much sideways, I did not go short because the trade able area I marked in before was not touched.

The S&P Market opened with a huge gap, keeping that in mind it was a wonderful way to scalp the DAX market for another 64 points :-)

What worked out not so good was trying to scalp crude oil outside the core hours, which ended up in 50 trades for today, so from now on I focus purely on trading the dax in the morning and then starting from 9 am also trading crude oil. What I also noticed what the explosive move on the crude oil market so everytime we have a breakout of the prior days highs its good to make a trade on 8.20 am in this market.

Tradelist

27th Thursday Side, Down, Down, Up

High of the Day: 50% of Prior Day Range
Morning Reversal at: 50% of Prior Day Range at 3.18 am
US Market Open Move ended at: S3Mid at 10.10 am
Low of the Day: S3Mid
Close of the Day: S1Mid

Loss 5 Points Elliot Wave
Profit 173 Points ART Method

I learned to trade breakouts with a buy stop above the highest blue bar so not on inside bars and to only re-use a break above a short reversal bar signal if there is a 2nd one, so not to use the one that stopped out my long position for another long entry. All in all 43 points in the morning session using the ART Trading Method.

What I also learned today was trading the pre-news session. Starting from 6 am till 8.30 am there are every day good setups, today a massive 60 points.

The US session was also very profitable, because of the rapid move I switched over to the 34 tick chart, on which I use a trend line break for re-entry. I also learned to exit the trade not at the first but 2nd confirmed reversal bar, and of course to not be so greedy and do not make another trade after 3rd swing in one direction. So compared to the 1 min chart I was able to make 1/3 points more with the 34 tick chart. All in all about 70 points in the US session.

Tradelist

As you can see I am trading now very seldom Elliot Wave setups, as they are most of the time against the trend, however I keep them in mind for potential targets, especially from 60 Min Charts they still provide a good guideline how far prices can go...

26th Wednesday Up, Down, Up, Side

High of the Day: Prior Day High
Morning Reversal at: Camarilla H3 at 4.0 am
US Market Open Move ended at:
at 9.54a am
Low of the Day: Camarilla L3
Close of the Day: Prior Day Close

Loss -6,5 Points Elliot Wave
Profit 86 Points ART Method

Before the 4 am news we had a small uptrend, with many countertrend short signals, I learned to ignore them if a market is making new lows every 2nd bar. Nevertheless the re-entry long on 3.42 worked out and I was glad that I was not greedy today and exited the scalp trade before the news came out. All in all 40 points in the morning session using the ART Trading Method.

Later we had a nice downtrend in the crude oil market and the news event that pushed the prices up and straight down again, all in all 96 points. The DAX bounced off Camarilla L3 line at the time when the S&P hit the S1 Pivot, the end of the rally was clearly visible for me as there where 3 swings up and the up trend was broken, so in total another 36 points in the bank.

Tradelist

Exit Rules:

• Only one good exit at the 3rd elliot wave short target today, this confirms that scalping the market not having a specific target is always the best method.
  

25th Tuesday Up, Up, Up, Side

High of the Day: R1
Morning Reversal at: R1 at 5.41 am
US Market Open Move ended at: R2
at 11.15am
Low of the Day: Open
Close of the Day: Prior Day High

Loss -2 Points Elliot Wave
Profit 70 Points ART Method

As expected we had a very trending day today. The scalp trade on 3 am to break above the last swing high worked out and from then pretty much long with all my strategies. Well except elliot wave where the entry on 6:30 was simply wrong and the countertrend DP short setup on 9 am very risky.

Trading the US session was a bit tricky because of the news, so the indicator stopped me out, well better safe than sorry, nevertheless its good to trade multiple contracts on such situations, the first half will be exited before the news and the other half with a stop at break even after the news.

What I learned from the 1 min crude oil chart today was to avoid getting long when we are in a trading range, after 10:50 am I only trade the DAX long as it was more dynamic.

Tradelist

Exit Rules:

• Trail short stop when the low of last bar reached the last target
  

24th Monday Up, Side, Up, Down

High of the Day: R1
Morning Reversal at: R1 at 3.36 am
US Market Open Move ended at: R1
at 11.15am
Low of the Day: R1mid
Close of the Day: Prior Day High

Profit 7 R optimized or
Profit 0,5 R trading all signals

In morning the DAX traded after a 50% gap fill higher (the typical monday morning trend continuation). A nice scalping signal occurred on the 2 min chart on 3:18, usually I only trade these signals one the 1 min chart, but I backtested the 2 min signals and they seam to work just as good as the 1 min ones. For additional confirmation if the trend is strong enough I added the Easctrend indicator, now I think my scalping method is almost perfect as I am getting all low risk entries and the exit at the high or low of the day.

Tradelist

Exit Rules:

• Trail stop when price goes above Camarilla H3
• Exit long on the final target (200% extension of prior swing)
  
• Trail short stop when price goes below prior day high
  

3rd Week of August

Using Daily Charts for Analysis this weeks High and Low was very predictable, what was challenging was to determine on which days to trade trends.

I am using Larry Williams Blast Off indicator to tell me which days will most likely have large Ranges:

range1 = Math.Abs(Close[0]-Open[0]);
range2 = High[0]-Low[0];
Plot0.Set(range1/range2*100);

This formular gives you an osciallator what will tell you when the value is below 30 that the next day will have a large range (e.g. HUGE $$$ Profits) and if the value is above 66 the next day will be a choppy sideways day (avoid trading play golf instead :-)

To make the weekly summary short:

• Monday was the common trendcontinuation day, Tuesday and Thursday Range days because prior days had large ranges, Wednesday and Fridays started oversold on such day the Stochastics Strategy performs the best as you can see on attached screenshot.
  

So all in all my trading improved a lot this week, not only have I now sound rules when to trade which strategy, I also "re-discovered" with the ART Trading the entry method that has the lowest risk. Looking forward for next week to prove once again that my trading style will outperform ANYONE else :-)

21th Friday Up, Up, Up, Side

High of the Day: R34 Mid
Morning Reversal at: R2 at 6.15 am
US Market Open Move ended at: R34Mid
at 10.18 am
Low of the Day: Camarilla L4
Close of the Day: R3

Profit 1,75 R optimized or
Loss -2 R trading all signals

In the morning I was confused, lots of short setups but the ART Trading Indicators once again showed the optimal way to trade. I am wondering why I still continue using the elliot wave approach if entry and targets are only correct 50% of the time. Anyway nice 105 points with the discretionary approach.

After US market opened crude oil had a nice run but I had also two stops, so I learned to not go long when a down pyramid is formed and in general I should not be so greedy R2 is already a nice target, seldom prices go any higher.

Tradelist

Setup Rules:

• Don't trade short signals below Camarilla L3
• Trade DP setups after 15 bars of last entry, to avoid getting in after every stop out
  
• Don't trade long signals above Camarilla L4 before 9 am
  

Exit Rules:

• On strong trends trail long stops with the parabolic SAR indicator
  

ART or Holy Grail Method for Scalping Part 2

By using two additional filters the ART Trading System is perfect to trade the both opening hours (3am to 5am and 9.30am to 11.00am)

• Exiting at double tops
• No re-entry if the Buying Volume is declining (ADL indicator)

The Grail Trading Method originally coded for the E-Mini Russel on 233tick chart also performs very good on the DAX 1 Minute Chart. So I am monitoring both methods but for the sake of simplicity I simply follow the ART Method for now...

20th Thursday Up, Down, Up, Up

High of the Day: Camarilla H4
Morning Reversal at: Camarilla H4 at 11 am
US Market Open Move ended at: R1/2
at 10.35 am
Low of the Day: R1Mid
Close of the Day: Camarilla H4

Profit 1,75 R optimized or
Loss -2 R trading all signals

Today I had the general trade plan that the DAX will rally in the morning and then top out for a reversal till US market opens, comparing days like the 22th of july showed me its always better to trail stops aggressively if there is a rally in the morning. Sadly my strategy does not have a re-entry logic, thats why I am doing this in the future: Terminating the Strategy with a profit in the morning around 6 am and letting it run on a demo account till it gets stopped out. Usually at around 9.30 I look for re-entry signals.

Entry Rules:

• Enter with a stop order 1 tick below the Low of last bar (this avoided today to get in short on the 8 am short signal prior to the news)
  

Exit Rules:

• Trail stop discretionary, when Zerolag Stochastic is above 90 in the morning
  
• Trail long stop with 3.3 ATR Trailing
  

ART or Holy Grail Method for Scalping Part 1

Today I scalped my way down to S2 on the DAX, this time I used both methods for scalping: The ART Trading Method and the Holy Grail Method.
In the morning the Holy Grail Method scored more points but after the US cash market open the ART System with just two trades was the better one to trade.

So it seams like for very rapid moves that have a lot of momentum to simply use the ART system with fewer trades, whereas if things are not so clear to trade with the 30 sec. chart using the Holy Grail Method.

Nevertheless the 1 Min Chart using the ART Trading Method will work very good after 9.30 am on almost all instruments, have a look at the EURO and Crude Oil Screenshots