Here's what I've been doing for the last several days. Not sure what affect it will have over time, probably not good. When I'm up 3 ticks I give the market one and only chance. It's either my way or the highway. For example: long at even, market goes to .75. There it must go up to even to remain a trade. If it ticks back down to .50, I exit at the mkt. Sometimes I get 2 ticks, but usually I provide the trading capital and "expertise" and IB provides the software and "service" and we split the profits.
Interesting method. Have you ever studied the Premium and its affect on futures prices after the program trading kicks in? I know http://www.programtrading.com/buysell.htm says they trigger their's at +1.82 for buys and -$1.32 for sells (varies), but it appears that even +/- 1.00 of premium programs are kicking in. I scan 1 minute charts every once in awhile and compare to the premium extremes that seem to trigger movement in the ES/NQ, and notice that there seems to be a high correlation between these trigger levels and subsequent movement of the futures for a few ticks at least. When the premium is say +$1.00 then they are selling futures and buying stocks, so you should see the futures tick down for a couple minutes, and vice-versa (usually after running up). You might take a look at it for your 1-3 tick profit. Maybe someone else who uses it has a better strategy. I don't like to trade for 2-3 ticks so I haven't actually tried it.
No scalping for me. I am looking for 6 handles. It's just there is an arbitrary short circuit I have placed on the trade based on nothing more than my p/l. There is one interesting aspect though, If I am right on the entry, it should behave right, and when it behaves right, it doesn't move back to where I entered. But what I am doing really is just using an entry plus 1 tick stop. But I don't trail the stop. That's just where I put my foot down.
If the trade survives the entry plus one tick stop, then I go back to following the indicators which got me into the trade. This all started because I was tired of getting stopped out when my indicators were telling me the trade was still strong. My indicators are set so they will usually stop me out at about 2 pts. But sometimes they do it quicker and sometimes they give me a little more room. But they have no concept of profit or loss. And since there doesn't seem to be any shortage of signals, this is just one more hoop I am making my trades jump through. Using Breakouts idea and limiting my trades to the outer edges, has for some reason allowed me to really tighten the first money stop. 1.5 is more than enough and really, on a lot of trades, all you need to see is 3 ticks and you know you are done for. I'm trading the same as I always have, but I'm only taking the signals on the outer edge and not trying to mix it up inside anymore. I had a lot of dead ends lying around like old cars in a junk yard. All they needed was a few missing pieces to get them humming again. Not sure about this scratch plus stop. Too early to tell. I am very suspicious of anything which makes me feel better. I usually don't make money when I am feeling well.
It's not a style, it generates as many as whatever I am doing now generates. I was up all night trying to work out the numbers and they are not so good as I suspected. Based on 100 trades what I don't know is how many show me a 3 tick profit at some point in their life, I'm guessing 75 so of those 75, only 2 will survive the stop and those 2 have to pay for 25 losses minus 75 ticks. so 25 losses at 1.5=37.5x12.5=(1875) 4.8x25=120+1875=(1995) and 73x12.5=912 4.8x73=350 912-350=562-1875=(1313) means the whole thing if executed flawlessly ends up $1313 in the hole that needs to be paid for by 2 winning trades. Sounds like once again I have just been very lucky the past few days!
I have a couple of ideas for scalping...I'll try a few today and post some charts. Maybe if we put our noggins together, we can work out a feasible approach. Then again, we could all drown together...
This one took all of 2 seconds...lol I usually use a 50 period price channel, but I'm using a 20 period for scalping so i can get more frequent signals. Anyway, the first signal broke out nicely and I got a fill at 916.00. I was going to raise my stop tick for tick from my initial 4 tick stop. But, it hit 917.00 in the blink of an eye and I got out for a quick 4 ticks. Only bummer is, this trade went to 922.00 and all I got was 4 ticks out of it. I guess that's the downside of scalping.
Okay...got a breakout...long at 924.00...put a stop at 923.00... market went to 924.50...raised my stop to 23.50...stopped out for a 2 tick loss.