CL trading guide by NoDoji

Here is my cautionary message to anyone wanting to trade CL intraday because you've looked at those charts and seen all those nice price swings and you think of how much money you could make trading just a few contracts.

Take the time to dissect every price swing of .30 or more every day for at least a couple months worth of days.

If you find patterns that lead into these tradable price swings more often than not, and you can recognize them at the hard right edge of price action, then you have the first "gift" necessary for profitable manual trading: pattern recognition skills.

Then analyze the max favorable and adverse price excursion (MFE & MAE) using various trade entry methods, for each appearance of the positive expectancy patterns you found. Keep doing this until you end up with what appears to be the potential for net profitable trading setups.

If you can do this for a couple months worth of trading days, then you have the second "gift" necessary for profitable trading: work ethic.

Next, use the data you collected to set up up rules for trade entry, stop placement, and profit-taking, and apply your rules to simulated live trading for a couple months. Trade every appearance of your chosen setup(s) and manage each trade according to your rules.

If you can do this successfully for a couple months, then you have the third "gift" necessary for profitable trading: discipline.

Once you obtain sim trading results that are in line with your back test results, trade your plan with the smallest size possible in a live trading account, trading every appearance of your setups and managing each trade according to your rules.

If you can do this successfully, then you have the final "gift" necessary for profitable trading: a trader's mindset.

If you do attain that level of success, then pay it forward.

ADD: It took me waaay more than a couple months to go through each of those steps because I was not "gifted". But I did have a huge work ethic.