I’m going to attempt to organize my thoughts on the most basic trading rules/guidelines that I would like to follow for myself. Most of these are Mancini rules/methodology which you can find by combing through his Twitter account. If you’d like a more in-depth explanation, subscribe to his Substack.
CHARTING
- Levels: Mancini doesn’t share the full secret sauce as to how he derives his levels and channels, but he often talks about working his way from the daily charts to the 8 hr, 6hr, 4 hr, 1 hr, etc charts and drawing his lines and levels on larger timeframes to get an idea of support/resistance. My main takeaway is to ZOOM OUT and be mindful of channel and trendline support/resistances on larger timeframes. Reminder: It’s good to zoom out “to get a sense of what the broad direction may be, but intraday and day to day it’s all reaction.”
- Timeframes: I am mostly on the 4 hr, 1 hr, and 30 min chart. Sometimes the 15 min for execution, but I try to stick to the 30 min as the lowest.
- RSI (Relative Strength Index) indicator
- set to the 5 period
- watch on the 4 hr and 1 hr chart
- NOT a timing tool; use to gauge the “energy” the market might have for a move
- RSI is never a reason alone to buy/sell
- relevant when a major support/resistance is lost
- can make you aware of possibilities of rug pull (if market is chugging up and “overbought”) or squeezes (if market is plummeting and “oversold”) and energy of the move
- RSI will cool off and reset either by chopping over time or via rug pull/squeeze
CONDITIONS
- Market modes: markets tend to either
- Trend
- Chop (range-y, trappy, sideways action with poor follow-through on setups)
80% of the time it will chop; recognize the mode the market is in and trade with this in mind.
- Days to be mindful of:
- After a big trend move, markets will tend to digest the move and consolidate with chop.
- Data Days: CPI, FOMC, NFP
- These data days tend to be very volatile; lots of algo trading once news drops, and price tends to be random/trappy/fakeout-y, at least for the first 30-45 min after.
- Chop leading into news/market events
- market waiting on earnings
- market waiting on data release
- Market days
- OPEX days (Fridays can be iffy in general)
- Monthly OPEX
- Quad Witching
- Last trading day of the month can have wild action towards the end the of day
- Trading hours: generally 8am – 11am
- no trading between 11am – 2pm.
- wrap it up by 11 am
- only take a post-2 pm trade if multiple conditions align for a setup
- can do overnight trades but risky; best to set wide stops and size down
- Number of trades per day: 1-3
- if 1st trade is a loss, try another one
- no more than 2 or 3 losses in a session
- 3 trades in a day is a RARITY (think handful of times a year)
- Timing of trades: 10-15 min in between trades
- this is to help prevent you from flip-flopping and getting chopped up
RISK MANAGEMENT
- Level to Level strategy
- Take profit on 75% of position at first level, leave 25% as a runner with trailing stops
- “No Green to Red” policy – don’t allow a position that is nicely green by 10+ points to reverse to red (set stop loss accordingly)
- Stop loss:
- average stop: 15 points
- MAX stop (for a very volatile market): 25 points
- size down your position and expand your stop to maintain risk
I’m sure I’ll add more to this list as I go, but these are the bigger points that come to mind when working on my own framework for trading.