Most of what I do is wait.
Nobody gets into futures because they wanted to sit and watch a screen, so that is not the part anybody signs up for.
But I sat out more setups this week than I took…
And the ones I skipped are the reason the week worked…
Wednesday I took the same setup three separate times and got three completely different answers out of it. Let me show you why, because it is not as simple as being patient.
Same level, three different answers
First one paid the full bracket. Second one went against me and I got out for a small loss. Third one paid the first target and nothing more.
Same number, same entry, same rules on all three.
If you are looking for the reason they turned out differently, it is not in the setup.
What changed was how many times price had already tested that level, and how violently it was moving when it got there.
Volatility is not the same thing as opportunity
Traders need movement. Without it there is nothing to trade.
But there is a point where movement stops being useful and starts being dangerous, and most people never define where that point is for them.
Mine is simple. I look at the average range price is covering against the size of my stop. If the market is routinely moving twice what I am risking, the trade is broken before I enter it.
Wednesday opened with that reading more than double my stop. So I waited.
Yesterday I did not take a single trade all session. Not one. The conditions never showed up and the log went in at zero.
That is a result. It goes in the book the same way a green day does.
What it costs you to wait
I want to be honest about this part because most people skip it.
Every day this week there were setups that would have paid me and I let them go. Some of them ran a long way.
You feel that. I have been doing this a long time and I still feel it.
The reason I let them go anyway is that the alternative is taking every one of them, which means also taking the fourth test of a level on a day the market is chopping in both directions with wicks everywhere.
Those are the trades that empty accounts. Not the losers you planned for. The ones you took because you were bored and the screen was moving.
The thing that makes it survivable
None of this works on feel. It works because there is a defined answer to the question of whether conditions are good enough, and the answer does not change based on my mood.
Look left before you enter. Count how many times that level has already been hit. First test and fourth test are not the same trade even though the chart draws them identically.
Then check the range against your stop. That one takes four seconds.
Neither requires you to predict anything. They require you to look before you click, which is the whole discipline.
There is always another setup. The levels do not disappear overnight and the market does not owe you a trade today.
Trade smart,
Tony Rago
Creator of the Golden Setup
