Have posted a lot of really crazy stuff on this forum lately about "dancing with the devil" and such - please forgive me - want to say thanks to all the members of this wonderful forum for all your helpful replies. In turn, I hope this post is helpful. The noob adventure continues - in pursuit of a viable real-time method of scalping stocks. Have established that my instinctive approach to tape reading while being "cute", does not produce consistent results - especially when switching between different stocks, or the market "tempo" changes. This "noob trick" of somehow subconsciously reading/sensing the twitching of the DOM and the T&S "light show" hasn't yet cut the mustard as a methodology with which to trade large positions and build equity - I would need a lot more experience - at present, my tape reading "gift" does not provide the consistency/reliability/profitability I am looking for - possibly never will. Since posting "big dogs" I have retreated to playing smaller positions - got the "training wheels" on again. Yesterday had mixed results -underscoring that the fact that an improved the approach/method is needed - only getting solid wins when playing very close to the spread and keeping hold times very short - resulting in too many trades and low success rates - especially when price action is vigorous. "Major re-think" - checked out some different tools, ended up loading (hope it's okay to name names - not selling anything here) BOOKMAP - got it set up with unfiltered feed and tabs for my favorite stocks around midnight last night - ready for this morning. Took only a few minutes of watching the "bouncing balls" to get a handle on it. Wow - I was stumbling around in the dark and suddenly the lights are on - here it is! - this is THE "picture" - an image of the market that I had struggled to construct in my mind - right in front of me - jaw dropping. So I eased into scalping AMD with small positions about an hour after opening. Instead of "carpet bombing" the spread with orders, it became easy to target entries/exits with "laser guided" precision - played AMD bouncing from the low side against strong resistance clearly displayed at $53.50 - played the bounces in both directions - so easy to see - "shooting fish in a barrel". It became immediately clear that much fewer trades are executed when the price is targeted in an exacting fashion. Was able to play well beyond the spread with confidence. When the price went the wrong way it was immediately clear and enabled a quick exit - losses today were few and very tiny compared to before. This sounds really schmaltzy but the dream of succeeding at trading became much closer to a reality today - cannot express how much of a night-and-day difference this tool made - I had been starved for information and resorted to using an instinctive "tape reading knack" to control my trading. Once again not associated in any way with BOOKMAP - NOT selling a product here - just sharing an experience. Sorry for tossing all these "noobisms" about. Cheers to the forum!!
Thanks easymon1 - since I am just a tad on the dumb side I am always a bit late "getting my nose in trough" - guess I had to learn about losing some trades before I could get focused on building a winning strategy. Realized very early on that a predictive approach to trading was not for me (scary!) - fascinated by order flow action seen on DOM/T&S (spoke to me) - really liked the idea of scalping in real-time. I believe you may have been the forum member that thoughtfully attached a number of links to an order flow analysis tools vendor in a reply to one of my earlier posts - yes, have searched for few of these vendors on this forum, Youtube, etc. - being a noob it took me a while to get on board - ended up getting BOOKMAP and the very first experience using it absolutely blew my hair back. Really enjoyed the video! Thanks again to you and all great folks on this forum!
bs holmes, you're ahead of the curve. if i sent you a link on order flow, i'd be surprised. if you got a link, you might want to post thread entries around the ET thread where that poster posts, and if inclined follow it up with the sender. they might send more that is worth first looks for a newly interested trader prospect. as for me, time's right to make hay while the sun shines - these markets are running like a herd of striped ape, so my focus is on the blood simple, here and now, grab a strap, here we go, relax and remain aware, keep your eyes on your frys futures daytrading. hell's a poppin', lol i probably sent the trading plan link and the engulfing's at resistance link. simple can be sufficient for the job, ymmv. not valid in some areas of the world. consult your physician before engaging in a program of strenuous trading strategies. break a leg.
Bookmap? Did you mention Bookmap? If it was Bookmap you mentioned then yeah I've heard of Bookmap. Glad to see Bookmap is working well for you. Bookmap.
You are searching for THE next thing. It does not exist. In the end you will find what everyone else does. It takes 3 years, not 3 weeks.