<i>"This seems to be the general view of everyone. I will open an account shortly and try my hand at this with 1 contract and see how it goes."</i> In a nutshell, the margin for error is least when scalping and most when trading for handles. While trading for handles, I can easily survive early chop, mental mistakes, software or connectivity glitches and erase several small loss trades with one moderate gain trade. Easy to wind up net profitable most days while overcoming the usual obstacles when our profit-to-loss ratio is wide. Scalpers need a high win rate, ultra-fast connection, lowest possible trade costs and everything clicking correctly in order to succeed. The margin for error is narrowest. Those are the things we all learn firsthand, the only way we learn about reality of scalping. Best of luck in your endeavor
I certainly do understand your explanation. My natural mind set pushes me towards scalping. I'm a real estate agent/investor right now. As an investor I flip homes rather then buy and hold rentals. My short attention span pulls me towards fast money even though the risk is higher.
I am not...YET...but...throw 10 cars at the ES and net ONLY 2 points...there is your $1,000.00 per day after commissions etc.
but do your due diligence and study, research...focus, focus, focus on only one contract only!!! BEFORE you trade with real/live money!!!...as for the input on Elitetrader...there are many great traders with great insight...but be discerning on their advice..."take the best and leave the rest"...
Scalping the ES is a suckers game. It is simple math: Commission, $4 best case. Spread, you will be paying the spread every time you trade. 1 tick on entry, 1 on exit = $25. So you have a $29 house edge to overcome on every trade. Are you really that good? Can anyone be that good? Austin I know I have seen you make the case that spread doesn't matter, but i think you are wrong in this case, because the off floor trader PAYS the spread every trade. I can give you my anecdotal evidence that this is true because i have scalped the ES and lost, and I have scalped the SPY and won, both over a signifigant sample size. The only difference is the spread and commission. The ES spread wouldn't matter if one could actually capture the spread as in the stock market. There isn't anything wrong with scalping, but make sure you pick the correct instrument. If you are dead set on scalping, put in the effort to open a stock account. If you are dead set on trading the ES, listen to Austin and shoot for handles.
Seriously... I'm so excited right now. Record trading day for me. Check out the video here: http://chrisdunn.typepad.com/blog/2008/10/record-trading.html Happy trading, Chris Dunn
great tading and great site...did you net 50 ES ticks or full ES points?...some refer to the tick as a "point"...I would understand as netting 50 ES points as Example: Buy at 1250 and sell at 1300...great trading anyway
<i>"Austin I know I have seen you make the case that spread doesn't matter..."</i> bid/ask spread doesn't matter when profitable trades are +6pts to +10pts ES handles. the spread matters A LOT to scalpers. Big difference