Here’s a counter-trend trade on the ES futures in the afternoon. In the video, I give my rationale for getting in, and my rationale for getting out. Did my trade work, or do I eat ramen noodles tonight? Watch and find out!

So I got tired of waiting on the after-trade outcome when recording the video, so here’s a screenshot of what happened: just a link so I won’t spoil the outcome of the movie (click to see the image).

Dude, how can anyone trade without that volume splitter? Available exclusively from eotpro. (disclaimer: I created the volume splitter and get the money when you sign up for the elite series. But, seriously… look at the entries on this blog since I created that thing… it’s freakin’ awesome).

(hmm… did my disclaimer spoil the outcome? Well, hopefully you saw the movie first!)

Have a good weekend everyone!

Here’s an example of a triple-screen entry from this morning on the S&P 500 Futures (@ES):

As always, we see that: (1) there is a clear uptrend on the context chart (upper left). The eotpro Bid/Ask Histogram is green. Then, (2) on the main chart on the right, we have a hook up in the stochastics when the large traders are net positive, and the paintbars are greenish. So we pick an entry from the fine-tuning chart (lower left chart).

This one really shows off the value of the fine-tuning chart, too… since you can see that it’s worthwhile to wait for a green bar to get in around 8:44… this way you don’t have to sit through that retrace!

I tried to buck the trend and go long as price curled up… did I succeed?

Well, yes and no. I made money on this trade, but didn’t get the move I was looking for. This video shows how you can use the eotpro volume splitter to find out if the probabilities are in your favor. Even though I created it, and make money when you subscribe, I have no choice but to say I really love that indicator. You’ll just have to forgive my enthusiasm…

But, was this a bad trading idea? Not at all! The market proceeded to validate me after it took me out. Check out how the move I wanted happened on the next upswing, with nice confirmation from the large traders. Was I in that one? Nope… I was getting the video put on youtube. See what kinds of sacrifices I make for you people?? :-)

Here’s another one:

This one was scary! Big pushes up against me on low volume. But, thanks to the volume splitter, I knew that the large traders were at a standstill, and I waited until I could eek out a little profit. Now, I normally preach to people that they should get out for break-even plus or minus a couple ticks when the large traders do not confirm the move. In this trade I got a chance to get out +1 tick, but I decided from experience that it was likely that we’d get a low-volume fake-out push down. We did, in fact, and I covered for +1 point. Only advanced traders should try that move, though, in my opinion… I was gambling a bit there.

Anyway, I hope you are liking the live trades… I plan to do lots more of them going forward… one way or another.

Ok, I’m trying once again to find video settings that work. This time, I recorded a huge video file, and then re-encoded it down to youtube size. I thought that might help things stay in sync, with more source data to work from. The result was that the audio came in ahead of the video… which is the opposite problem from before… but if I have to have a problem, then I’ll take early audio rather than late audio.

Anyway, I think this is mostly watchable, even though there are also some audio glitches that cut my voice off. Enjoy, and I’ll try to make more of these going forward.

This ES futures trade was made via my Elder-esque triple-screen approach. I modernized it with eotpro Elite Series indicators, of course! This one didn’t turn out to be too exciting, but hopefully future ones will be.

I was doing some other things, but did keep my trading platform open for the majority of the trading day. Here’s my context chart (about 28k share bars) on ES:

As you can see… pretty choppy, lame day. I did make three trades for three wins, but it took a ton of patience. But, what’s cool about having a context chart (you can also use point-and-figure charts or even something like a 10-minute chart for this purpose), is that you know that you are going to need patience. Even from early on, it was clearly looking to be a kind of painful day… the moving averages were all right in the middle of the price action. To me, this means that it’s time to break out the counter-trend plays and fade the moves. At least until you see a high-volume breakout.

Anyway, I hope you had a good trading week, and have a good weekend!

I wish I could make a screen capture video to show you the whole day… it was pretty cool. But, here’s another nice clean entry.

You can see that the upper left chart puts us in a clear uptrend context. So, we’re only looking long for non-scalp trades. Then, you can see in the large right-hand chart that we are pushing out of consolidation with pressure from the large traders. The eotpro GCycle Stochastics are hooking up. Also, the moving averages start lining up in the correct order. So, you check the fine-tuning chart (lower left), and see that the bars are already green… so you jump in.

It takes some real patience to wait for the three screens to line up. But when they do, it’s often very nice. Note on the overview chart that, for the rest of the day, the uptrend turned weak and sideways. The moving averages never really crossed to allow for true short signals, though. Only scalping and short aggressive trades are allowed from then on out.

I started watching the markets around 9:30 central time. Can’t quite seem to get home and to my trading desk by 8:30… gotta work on that!

Anyway, here’s the first trade I saw set up. Pretty!

Note that there was another good setup around 10:00ish, on the stochastic hook up. But I must have been looking at another screen at the time, because I completely missed it. I need to set up an alert or something.

Anyway, one thing about this approach, is that it really makes you sit on your hands until a trend gets established. Look at the upper left chart (the high-level context chart) at how big an up move starts around that 9:08 time frame. But, the moving averages have not yet crossed, so if I were at my desk I would have to sat it out. At least, from a triple-screen perspective, I would. In reality, I’d take stabs at the upswings, and try to scalp out maybe 1 point at a time.

If you have a nice scalping method, that can really help you stay sane while you wait for your bigger trades to finally set up.

Here are some example trades on ES using my recent triple-screen setup. They take you all the way up a large uptrend, in 6 runs. Pretty cool. Now, some of them

Sadly, I am in a huge hurry right now, and so I can’t write much commentary. I will just say, if you look at the third and fifth one closely, you will see that all of the elements are not lined up perfectly. Can you see what I mean? So, these I would just try to grab a quick point on, or something, rather than try to ride them all the way up. At least, that’d be my initial thought when getting in. There are plenty of opportunities to trade… no need to try to swing for the fences on each entry. At least, that’s my take on things…

Here’s a couple examples of the triple-screen in action. Check this out:

Here are the screenshots I’m talking over in the video, if you want a higher-res look. Just click on the thumbnail to get the full size:

As I mentioned this weekend, I paper-traded my prototype triple-screen today. It’s not the first triple-screen I’ve used… but it has potential to be the best. With the volume splitter involved, how could it be stopped? :-)

Anyway, here’s an example from today. It’s pretty clear what to do, no?

I went ahead and left the ad text I had written on there for the elite series, since this screenshot shows off my EOTPro elite series of indicators. Check it out if you haven’t!

So, today’s trades went well… it was clear when to trade, and when to scalp against the trend. I rather liked it.

I am crazy, in that I am most comfortable if I change my style up a bit from time to time. I don’t recommend most traders do that… find a style and stick to it, at least until you are able to make consistent money. There’s plenty of time to pick up additional trading styles once your bills are paid!

If you are losing money, read that last sentence over and over, until you understand it!

By the way, I am much closer to having a sellable ninja package now! I got more work done this weekend. Here you can see the Shelly’s Volume and GCycle Stochastics, and the powerful Madder indicator:

I’ve been playing around with ideas tonight, some. Not new ideas, really… but old ideas re-built with new code.

I’m sure many of you are familiar with scalping techniques built around rainbow ribbons of weighted averages. Tonight I made a new custom moving average to try out… and whenever I make a moving average, I make a rainbow out of it, for laughs. Here’s an example entry, when the lines sort themselves out, and continue to expand through a pullback:

It’s an easy technique to understand… in my experience, hard to use in real-life trading, though. Your mileage may vary.

Also, I’m reviewing a new-ish book by Alexander Elder. I can’t read an Elder book without thinking back to the legendary Triple-Screen approach. So, I tweaked some old paintbar code, and added in things like my volume-splitter and rolling VWAPs, and the trusty GCycle_Stochastic_Smooth… and came up with this triple-screen incarnation:

I will probably sim-trade it Monday, and see if it’s usable. In theory, it works well. And of course, if it works well, I will make sure my eotpro Elite Series subscribers have access to all the parts.

I’m running out of energy tonight, but maybe tomorrow I will be able to post my review of that Elder book.