Thank you for your comment and support!

Odds definiately seemed to favor some sort of price expansion move today, due to the build-up of consolidation and indecision of the last two sessions. I didn’t even realize it was an N4 day – the dojis leaped off the charts.

I strongly recommend printing off intraday charts of the stocks/futures traded and then making hand annotations of the ideal trades that you identified in hindsight. In doing so, you practice proper pattern recognition so that you can be accustomed to recognizing these patterns in real time. Then it’s just a matter of confidence in trading them. We all see patterns and trade set-ups differently, but what’s important is that we internalize our perceptions to be able to recognize them in real time.

I’m glad to hear I can be of help.

I’m actually with you in that this is not a true classification of a pure ‘trend day.’ Case in point, I was stopped out of my core position when price breached the 5-minute 50 period EMA. That is a standard and reasonable exit point for a trend day – the stop is placed there because price should not – by definition – go there. Also, the lengthy positive momentum divergence that developed decreased the odds that a true trend day was developing. I admit I was frustrated to be stopped out and then have price surge back down to complete the day, but we trade what we’re given at the time. Hindsight is great.

I guess this would be the opposite of a “double distribution’ trend day in Market Profile Theory. It was actually trend down, consolidate (form profile), then trend down. Value was established towards the middle part of the day and then broken to the downside. It falls outside normal classification schemas.

Excellent observation.

In a trend day, prices are actually moving in the same direction for most of the day. The market remains overbought or oversold essentially all day. Mean reversion strategies lose money and momentum strategies make money.