To Trend or Not To Trend

As I wrote in an earlier post, I am looking for ways to identify "Trend Days" and take advantage of the direction to make a single trade with the trend and capture significant price action. The issue here is, that in the current market, with it's high degree of volatility, capturing these trend day's involves significant downside risk. Additionally, at this stage in my development as a trader, I feel more comfortable with shorter timeframes, albeit with more modest profits.
Taking a look at my trading today; I started very poorly, with -500 after 3 trades; this was mainly attributable to trying to follow the big trend, and getting chopped up in the early action. Once I went back to scalping, I was able to recoup the losses of the day; winding up a modest -50 after commisions were factored in.

The /ES trade from 4 to 4:15PM

I am observing some interesting trends in the post-close E-mini action. Specifically, if we trade sideways into the close, there is opportunity to trade the rangebound price movement by buying the bid and selling the ask at the extremeties. Today I made three 1 point trades in this timeframe; with little risk.

2-contract trading idea

Setup: we have a trend day, as identified by the ADX on the 10m SPX chart.
Plan:
part1: enter a 1-contract position on a pullback to the 20MA, with profit target at R1/S1, and stop at 4 points.
part2: trade an additional contract in the primary direction on pullbacks, and sell it at interim tops, using my BetterVolume / RSI / trendline signals for entry and exit calls.

Weekend Update

Importance of testing trading strategies. First; I need a strategy! I am still just trading on trendlines and volume indicators. Is it time to add more rigor to my setups? Perhaps this it still the time for learning and experimenting; or perhaps it is time to add some TOS "strategies" to my trading, and see how those work out for me.
If I did have a home-grown strategy that I felt strongly about; or perhaps a modification of an existing strategy; having it expressed in code, and having the ability to back-test it against historical market data is invaluable. This is standard QA! Right in line with my core competencies.

Trend Day rules

1. Determine if we're trending (this is the hard part). This is probably best done by viewing the early action, and checking the TICK and MA's, and the ADV line by 10AM

2. If we are trending; buy on 5 min stochastic bottoms, sell on stochastic turns through the Zero line.

3. Wait for pullbacks; but also wait for them to turn. I was early today, and got stopped out for a 4pt loss.

4. RSI will also give sell signals.

5. Touches on the 20SMA on the 5min chart can give buyable pullback signals.

Trading Journal; the beginning

I have started up a new blog for the purpose of tracking my trading performance.