Are you gonna go my way? - Closed

 Are you gonna go my way? And I got to, got to know! - the great Lenny Kravitz

So no trades this morning. Didn't get in yesterday, and once the markets took off to the upside this morning after the Claims numbers, I wasn't going to jump in front of a bus.

This leads me to a new tool in my belt. ATR. The bond market seems to love running up on news, maxing out the ATR for the day, and then - if going in the proper direction, it just peters out, or if it has run against the normal flow, it will reverse off the highs.

So, where the heck am I going with this? Looking at the charts this morning, all timeframes were below the cloud. Did I get in? No, as I knew that the numbers at 0830 were market movers. Which way? Don't know, but getting run over isn't fun. So, numbers came out. Market spiked up. Will they then come back down soon? No, they seemed to keep going up. Did I get in? No, because the daily is still in a steep decline - however it has been steep lately, so some sort of rebound wouldn't be unexpected.

So, what was I thinking? Well, I looked at the large spike from 0830, and said to myself, "Stephen, what would happen if this retraced 32 ticks? Would that be a good retracement to go short?"  So, I calculated what it would be: 111'090. And right at the ATR for the day. Hmmmm.

Now look at the chart. Where did price go? And then back down. I just need to get rid of the fear of getting in!


Update:

So, price came back to that level. Perhaps not the smartest move to get back in, but I have to take the trade. There is a divergence in MACD-H, so it looks like a double top. I will risk 10 ticks on ZN, and see where it takes me. It will either be stupid or brilliant. Let's see.

At 1256, short 1 x ZN@ 111'090, stop 111'14, tgt110'210.



And I guess the answer is stupid. Price continued to climb and came up to stop me out. 
At 1327hrs, bot 1 x ZN@111'140 for a loss of 1R.




I will watch price and see where it goes for the day. Maybe my entry was a bit hasty (as it was the 2nd revisit) and would have been better a little further up. Or maybe not....

Update to the update: It was stupid.


Price has continued to climb. If I had gotten in when two of the three time frames were in agreement, I would have had a winning trade by now. But my bias that "prices have to go lower" affected my perception of the situation. 

So, the $156 lesson for the day is: go with the direction of two time frames. Especially if they are adjacent (D&H or H&10M). I just can't expect trades to hit huge targets, as they aren't all in sync. Trade what you see, not what you feel!

And now that it is so much past the ATR, there is no way I am going long here. Don't short in the hole or go long on the mountain top! 

I guess I will wait for tonight.



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