Thursday, March 22, 2012

The first opposing trend bar in a channel

A channel provides few entries and can drag for many points. One of the most reliable entries in a channel is to fade the first opposing trend bar (b15, b27, b60). You can usually sell the close on limit with a tight stop say 2 or 3t. This works particularly well if there were no opposing bars since channel inception.

The reason it works is because this is essentially a first channel breakout that you expect to fail. Note that you need a trend bar with a strong close. A doji such as b57 or a weak close such as b11 is usually not reliable. Often this is just an optimization since you get a signal right after (b16, b30, b61) and you can simply choose to trade it with a normal stop entry.

5 comments:

  1. Cad, what was your reason for re-entering on b9 after being stopped out? Is it the same reason as b7 on Feb 1st?

    thanks

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    1. The overall reason was the same, the bar that stopped me out did not invalidate the prior signal. In today's case, it was simply a large signal bar whose theoretical stop was not taken out. On 2/1, the bar that stopped me out gave a new oio reversal signal.

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    2. thanks a lot Cad for explaining.

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  2. Hi Cad, does the opposing trend bar have to pull back to trap counter trend traders? All three trend bars did.

    What is the best way to define a channel in Ninja script terms - e.g. check for overlap in recent bars?

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    Replies
    1. No, it does not have to trap traders. The opposing bar itself is viewed as a legitimate entry point by limit traders.

      A channel is any non-horizontal move where most bars overlap and extend only a few ticks beyond their preceding bar.

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