Try scaling into trades over time, letting the market come to you rather than chasing the move or pushing the trade through at unfavorable prices. I also trade with a tight stop and it's very difficult to enter in mid-trend; if your rhythm is off, what happens is that you get stopped out right when you should be entering, and usually that ideal entry point only lasts a few seconds.
leg in with a fraction of your full position. Scale in to a full position if it comes to it but be clear about when your hypothesis for the original trade is busted by market action and if that happens be diciplined about getting out, DON'T go in to HOPE mode or you will get skinned. Much of the time you will make far less than you might have if you put on a full position from the start but you will also be far more likley to have fewer losses due to getting stopped out and another result will be that you will likely let your winners runn longer. More winning trades will build your confidence. Key is not to overleverage. I trade the NQ and ES I use $15K per contract as my margin requirement. If I used $10K, or $5K, I would surely be stopped out of allot of good trades (and as it is I still get stopped out of good trades on occasion).
Yes I'm trying to scale in, but I can tell you that my limit orders are very, very often not hit although the price target is reached. Say, I have a limit buy order @1318 and it just happens that often that we reach that price and I'm just not hit, because I'm not in front of the order row. Then you try to enter on the ask side, but it just doesn't get hit until the market is 3-4 points higher. Else, if you protect yourself with SL- order, of course you get immediately hit, often we only hit a price in order to trigger some stops and then we bounce back within the same second. These are serious problems to me.
Something else. I read a lot about migration from stocks to future trading due to an illiquid stock surrounding. As I do both in addition to options, IHMO trading futures on a intraday- level is the most difficult task of all, to me. Maybe this is not exactly rational, but the futures can cause me a lot of more fear than stocks or options.
...your conservative (to me) account sizing suggests that you are holding for days. If I may ask, please, is that coorect? Just trying to learn from the experts. TIA. - Mike
I think as long as you are patient and scale in on pullbacks, you can go ahead and enter at market (for futures there is a minimal spread 99% of the time); don't be afraid to pay up a single tick after letting the market come to you, you are already ahead of most traders that gun from the hip. If you feel more nervous about buying futures vs stocks, you're not alone -- but it's just a matter of leverage. Lower your total trading size until you feel absolutely comfortable with pulling the trigger (to the point where it almost feels insignificant whether or not the trade goes your way). And mvic made a great point -- always remember the point where you know you are wrong, and put a hard stop for your position there. Scaling can be effective but can also lead to sloppy loss-management.
The part about holding for days is correct, often weeks. The part about "expert" is incorrect, very far from it.
Don't try and catch the top and bottom of ranges, just near the top and bottom. If you do infact keep getting stopped out of otherwise good trades then give yourself a bit more room, again don't put SL right at support and resistance but beyond so when the stops get run you are not taken out. Again it seems to me that Illiquid hit the nail on the head: your main problem is that you are overleveraged for your level of experience/confidence.
...thanks for relating your time frame to your risk assessment. At the risk of embarrassing myself, I would like to ask this stupid question, because I think there must be a smart answer to it. With that much cash, and assessing the NQ risk the same as ES risk, why not just trade QQQ and SPY using the full 4X leverage in a daytrading account, and avoid the overnight death spike risk (I am assuming here that you use stops)? I haven't traded stocks since they instituted that PDT BS. Screw 'em. - Mike
..the discussion of scaling in is confusing me. I have not developed any system (admitedly none are better than mediocre) that benefit from scaling in. In every case it is better to go whole hog at the beginning. Anyone have contrary experience? If so, can you identify the general nature of the system that makes this so? Thanks. - Mike