So far, bbands have helped me stay in winning trades longer. During a trade, I am inclined to look at my pl and think "That's enough! I need to lock it in before it evaporates." And close a trade too early.
Bbands are helping me look at a trade and realize... ok, that's normal volatility, I'm ok, I'm ok, I'm ok...
Today, BABA (which, maybe I shouldn't have been in in the first place) eventually established a trend. It never dropped out dramatically. It just kept eroding and eroding. The kind of thing where I'm likely to tighten down too early. *Sometimes this is correct to do, like on a Thursday or Friday when I lose time quickly and won't gain in absence of a strong trend.
Today I did stop out of half of BABA for a loss, but I was able to hold the other half for a nice ride into green. Looking at the bands (2sd and 3sd) on the 5- and 1-min, BABA stayed "in the river" and also below the midline most of the time. When it tested the top bands on the 1-min and bounced back down, that's a new lower stop.
Eventually, BABA really simmered down to pretty flat and the market tried a bounce so I took it off. If not for bbands, I'm pretty sure it would have been a red day today.
