Emini Day Trading Lessons: 6.5 Points – Momentum is Building

STA Updates

First off, apologies go out to regular readers of the blog as updates have been pretty sparse lately.  It's been an incredibly busy time here at Samurai Trading Academy as we have a new group of students working through our curriculum and also taking part in the live training sessions.  There's a lot of classwork to do and most of my time is currently being dedicated to providing the best educational resource possible.  Things are likely to settle down a bit over the coming week so expect to see updates on the blog a bit more regularly from now on.

The Trading Session

Tuesday's live session wasn't the easiest to trade as it had a number of potential levels we needed to be aware of and there were lots of risk factors to consider.  These days take a little bit more work to analyze and trade well but they are hugely important to a trader's overall results.  While the home run sessions are great, they don't come around too often so we need to know we can have a solid day even when we don't see a lot of movement in the markets.  A good day is exactly what we got as a number of the students ended up with some excellent results overall!

The market started the day off with a downside fake at the open which we quickly identified.  Although the market could have kept moving down, we know it's a low probability situation that's best to avoid.

From there we made a strong move up to prior resistance but due to some longer term factors we were still looking to go long.  I attempted a riskier advanced trade to the upside first but once it began to stall I decided to take profits.  I still felt strongly that we were likely to break further to the upside but as we were holding for the time being it made sense to take the small profit and then get right back in.  This allowed me to effectively reduce my risk for the second trade while also giving the potential of greater profits overall.

Finally we broke the area for our 2 points before getting long again for another 2.  With no clear end to the trending move in sight we simply looked to join any continuation of the ride.  Unfortunately, nobody in the group managed to get filled on the long from 1565 so we were unable to catch the last bit of profit in the move.

I went for one more long but after a brief period of consolidation it became clear that this was likely to retrace further than I wanted to see.  A quick exit on the retrace and then I began considering taking an aggressive short.  Being stuck between two areas meant any sort of short here carried a great deal of risk, so it was made clear to those in training that this was not a good trading opportunity for traders unless they knew they could manage their risk extremely well.  I actually did have an order in the market to attempt a short but when I didn't get filled on an initial touch and price moved without me, I knew it was time to stand aside.  In these risky areas, if you can't get in with ideal timing and location then it's best not to be in at all.

Being able to determine what's "ideal" is a skill that must be developed, which is what made this trade one that only the experienced trader would want to entertain.

By looking at the big picture of the day I was then able to identify a high quality opportunity for another long.  This was quite advanced as well because it requires understanding the structure of the market, but if you can get in at the right spot in order to manage your risk well then you can find some trades with an excellent risk to reward.  As you can see I held it from area to area in order to bank 2.5 points but some of our students were able to get in mid way through the move for a safer 2 point trade.

From here I considered one more difficult long but again cancelled my order after not getting the initial fill.  We can see around the end of the live class (second blue vertical line) that the market was becoming quite choppy and slow so it made sense just to wrap things up for the live class.  In hindsight I probably should have called an end to the trading day for myself as well, but I saw one last opportunity I wanted to try.  Probably a bad idea given the market momentum, but overall I was happy with the setup and had no problem taking the loss.

EL's Student Chart

I just thought I would quickly share one of our trader's charts with you today from the live class.  EL did an excellent job as you can see, managing 4.25 points on 100% winners.  As an added bonus he also managed to avoid taking the trade at the top which I took a loss on.

Very nicely done, EL - there's nothing better than a 100% winning day!

In the coming weeks I plan to share a lot more about trader development here at Samurai Trading Academy and also some of the progress we are making in the live class.  It's a very exciting time for us right now as we have a good range of traders with different skill levels going through the program, including some who have never traded futures before.  It's always a lot of fun to see the development of trading skills and to work with so many extremely dedicated people, so a big thanks again to everyone who is taking part!

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Cody Hind

Founder & Head Trader at Samurai Trading Academy

Cody has over a decade of experience day trading the Emini S&P 500 (ES) and Forex markets and has worked personally with dozens of traders to help them achieve consistent profitability and make trading a full-time career.

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