I am very fortune – the emails I receive are overwhelmingly positive (literally only a handful of negative ones in 3 years). But this email from Isaac really stood out:
“Hi Barry, Just wanted to let you know that I've been day trading the ES with your 3 indicator setup for the past 5 weeks and haven't had a single losing day. I really appreciate your fantastic work, and your free videos are a great help. Thanks so much, Isaac.”
Wow, not a single losing day in 5 weeks! That's impressive. I had to know more. How many trades was Isaac making a day? What were his stops and profit targets? Was there something he was doing differently? Here's what he said:
“Honestly, I’ve mainly attempted to follow the principles you lay out in your examples. I try to stick to overall trend direction as I see it from the 4,500 tick chart, looking at cyclical turns and whether it holds or breaks Support / Resistance lines.
Based on trend direction, I will either look for a Reversal when the 4,500 tick chart is about to make a cyclical turn, or for a Pull Back Continuation signal if the 4,500 tick chart has broken Support / Resistance.
The beauty is that I’ve made money on both Reversals and Continuations after Pull Backs. It’s nice to be able to make money on trend days since I’ve historically been a counter-trend trader.”
Key Point: Use the highest time frame chart (4,500 tick) for trend direction.
“Once I have made a decision on overall trend, for Reversals I look for a combination of Professional bars, RAMBO bars, Exhaustion volume and Divergence (especially near the zero line). I look for confirmation on more than 1 time frame, but I don’t have a specific set of rules yet.
The 2nd turn after End of Trend warnings coupled with turns on the 4,500 tick chart are also good entries.
I enter once it breaks a Professional or RAMBO bar. For Pull Backs, I look for a move back to Support / Resistance on the 4,500 tick chart coupled with signs of slowing down on the other time frames.”
Key Point: Time your entry with the break of a Professional (or Amateur) bar.
“Two of your points that have helped me the most are looking for the overall trend from the 4,500 tick chart and waiting for a break of a Professional / Amateur bar for confirmation. I used to think this worsened my entry and that limit orders are better, but when catching a Reversal I like your strategy of waiting for confirmation. Also, based on your advice I have made a conscious effort not to jump on Reversals too early, although sometimes it still happens.
One more thing I just remembered, when fading a move I like to see price relatively far away from the VWAP (volume-weighted average price). This gives me a little extra assurance that the market is indeed stretched.”
Key Point: Reversals take a while to play out – no need to rush in.
“I use a 4 point target and 2.5 point stop. I’ve been trading mostly 1 contract, sometimes 2, taking a small $15k account to over $19k in 5 weeks. I generally net about $150-400 a day, with my worst day so far being just $50 net. I work as a computer programmer, but I’m able to day trade 3-4 days a week. I hope to start firming up my rules and increasing size.”
Isaac was kind enough to send me his Excel trade log and here are his results:
- 29% net return ($4.4k) over 4 weeks on a $15k account
- 70% win rate and profitable every day traded
- $258 average daily profit trading mostly 1 contract
- Average daily profit 3.9 points
- Average 3.3 trades per day
- Average winner 2.8 points, Average loser 2.5 points
I hope you'll agree – impressive stats. In fact, contest winning stats!
“Barry, I absolutely love your indicators, and you charge such a fair price. I have no problem putting my support behind you and your great work.”
OK – not trying to blow my own trumpet here. But just to say … if you're struggling, if you're finding trading harder than you thought it would be – take heart, it is possible to win at this game and stories like Isaac's show the way.
I hope to add to this Success Stories category – so if you've got good news you want to pass on, then let me know. Good luck with your Emini trading.
