I don't define volatility by the VIX number, and I think lots of others do the same. You can get a high VIX number from just going down day after day. Simply going down is not volatility. If something is volatile it's moving sharply in either direction in a somewhat unpredictable and random fashion. If we go UP the exact same amount as we go DOWN every day, the VIX goes down instead of up.
OK, how about average daily range? In August there were multiple days when ES went 60+ points and even in September most days had 25+ points range. If that is not volatile enough for ya...... You not gonna win this debate my friend... My point is still stands.
I made this thread on the 8th of February referring to that exact date which had 6 major swings counting 10 points or more each. For the last 805 trading days; 657 days had one or more major swings. Out of those 657 days, only 18 days or roughly 3% of the sample had exactly 6 major swings. In fact, 85% of those 657 days had between 1-3 swings, with a far majority having only one major swing. So, my data supports what I suspected back then and it seems that you're wrong. PS: This is not accounting for the size of the swings which were also well above the norm.
You are writing from the perspective of someone who knows what they are doing, that's a strong statement, does this mean that you have profitably and consistently traded and captured 80-95% of these intraday swings on the ES? I think that's almost impossible for a discretionary PA-based trader who places any emphasis on risk management, most pullbacks in what only becomes clearly a trend after-the-fact have very strong countertrend signal bars in realtime. It seems like the only people profiting off of these large intraday swings consistently are the smarter players using them as a hook to lure new retail day traders in.
This is not a workable strategy, past performance will be not indicative of future results, your major factor giving this strategy a small chance of brief success is luck premised on very fleeting market inefficiency, the idea of a 3 point stop on the ES not being hit and a trader holding for 7 times that risk is a black swan event, 3 point stops are well within the ES' ATR during most conditions of volatility, so this is a failed strategy as well which will, over time, only enrich the CME, brokerages, and institutions.
Your assertion that high volatility as defined as 20-40 point moves in the ES with very minor retracements, allowing traders to tightly control risk were not black swan events in 2016 and that high volatility is not a double-edged sword but it is a cash windfall for discretionary day traders are utterly false, you and speedo resorting to ad hominems shows the weakness of your positions.