Wild Trading

The crude oil market was always considered to be volatile, so this market would have to be called something else.

Wild is one description. As I stated in an earlier post you either have to raise your stops or stop trading until this market cools down.

My measure of volatility is the daily 5 period average true range and it is currently running is dollars terms at $6,370.00. That is the largest range I have ever seen in crude oil.

Of course that ATR number has the Friday $10,000 plus range in it, but still this range / volatility is huge and should not be ignored by traders as it changes the whole market place you trade in.

If you did not know what product you were trading and had not been in the market for the past 2 weeks you would not believe that this was the same product you were trading 2 weeks ago. 14 days ago the 5 day CL ATR was $3,930.00.

So with that in mind if your trading is not working, it is not working for a reason.

The market has changed.

So what do you do?

One other method that can stand beside raising your stops is increasing the format in which you view the market. If you normally trade a 144 tick chart move up to a 233tick chart, if you trade a 3 minute chart move up to a 5 minute, etc.

At the very least keep your eye on a higher time frame market and wait for trend on it before you look at an entry on the shorter time frame chart.

If you don't want to risk dollars in a different time frame try simming it for a while and see how it works.

Remember you don't have to trade, and a day with no live trades is a break even day, which for some may be an improvement on past results.