Buy low, Sell high
or
Sell high, Buy low
I know trend traders argue that a price is never to low to sell or to high to buy, but my approach is a lot safer!
You don't know when a trend day will develop, but if you trade in the direction of the longer term trend (for intraday trading use a 15 or 30min chart on indexes) my approach makes sure you are in the trade, when it starts trending.
And if the pullback you used as entry really signals the trend change (and there is just ONE real trendchange) then you will be stopped out at a less damaging price for your account compared to the trader who bought high or sold low.
Sure, you will miss a trade, a breakout or breakdown, because you waited too long to commit. But if you do the math, most actually 70% to 80% of the rangebreaks fail before a real trend emerges, so by waiting you usually will get another chance to enter. Just have patience.
For some time now we see high volatility in stocks, futures or commodities, so there is enough meat for intraday traders, even if you miss one trade. If you expand your trading to different classes of trading vehicles, you will notice, that you no longer depend on one signal. If you miss he bus on equities, because Mr. Bernanke gave the go ahead in his speech, the market reacted, but you were getting yourself a new cup of coffee, take a look at currency futures or oil futures or gold futures or treasuries or soft commodities. You will notice, they don't move in sync! They have their own patterns, they often move non or only loosely correlated to other markets, so you might catch the ride there, when you missed it in the ES.
