It seems you should use your current contra-trend exits as entries in the trend ... at least if these exit have the same precision than your entries. There are some "classic" low risk entries in a trend ... double-top (double-bottom) pullback, retest of last breakout level ... then you can use last pullback size to project next pullback ... that said in general, trend trading requires to let the trend do its job, which includes getting counter-trend traders on-board to then run their stops ... which means, sitting through the pullbacks, and adding in those when you get a low-risk opportunity. As you are currently trading size counter-trend, why not always use 1 contract as a runner, for those rare occasions where you actually caught the new trend inception?
ES isn't known for being a day-trading "trend" instrument ... Have you looked at TF ? Its moves are way more dynamic than ES
The ES trends sometimes, but I'm not so sure scalping and trending are related... when the ES trends, it usually moves 4-30 points or more. Or maybe I'm just thinking of scalping as very mild HFT trading...
Well when I do the intraday scalping the trend is constantly changing so bull or bear it does not really matter except that the volatility has lowered considerably. Definitely not the issue here. Joe
sounds like me when I was scalping ES. One day the market was just smoking, almost no pullback, all I could find all day was just two short trades for a point and a half each. At the end of the day ES was up 25 points and all I got out of it was 3. When I switched to trend trading the hardest thing to do was enter after it had already moved and looked like it could collapse at any time. No advice for you man, know what you are talking about. In a strong trend entries aren't that critical. Everybody makes money whether they got in smart or got in stupid.
I can relate a lot to what you just said, definitely sounds like me. However, what you said about entries not being that critical in strong trends, that's where I can't agree, as I must limit my risk at all times, no matter what the probabilities are. I need to enter with precision, trend or contra trading, or can't enter at all, it's how I keep floating in this business. If a bigger stop is needed, that means I won't be able to use my typical size, therefore, I would not be interested in such trade. Joe
In my experience, traders either see the main trend but can't trade counter or they feel safer trading counter but miss the main trend. I have a friend and co trader who is a well respected poster on ET and he used to be a counter trend only trader - not by choice but that was all he could see. Now he is an avid trend trader but getting him to hold on to a trade at the right time was one step away from mission impossible, but once the set up was understood he took to it like a duck to water. It's not easy to explain and requires a lot of training. Change is harder than most traders expect. The answer I developed has a lot to do with the effects of time on a trade so one trade can be a scalp and that is all that is expected whereas another can run for hours. Time cycles usually conflict with one another telling you to scalp but when they harmonize or the dominant one is very strong it is time to hold on to a trade. Reading Hurst might switch the lights on if you are creative. A more simple approach is multiple time frame trading. If your biggest time frame says short and your shortest says long then you are counter scalping in an Up for Down trade.