Nice to see you trading many things. I am very wary of gold, silver and oil. its range is shrinking. soon it will move but I don't know when.
One idea I have in the back of my mind is the relative performance of gold versus silver, depending on the risk environment, economic conditions, and geopolitical tensions. This will require some backtesting and some foundational work to effectively quantify “Risk environment”, “Economic conditions”, and “Geopolitical tensions”. After I get my account nicely in the green, it would make sense to explore ideas like the one above.
Scalping profits were $118 with a PL ratio of 2.70:1 and win% of 83.3%. T1 - I premeditatedly violated something like five rules on this one. The overriding consideration was my feeling of “That’s all she’s got”. This was based on a sense of lack of buying interest for this time of day. In other words, exhaustion. Buyer’s exhaustion. My stop would be activated after two minutes and based on momentum bars. Admittedly, two minutes can be a long time, especially early in the session, but if I faced some heat and was at least temporarily saved by a friendly momentum bar, I would have added on. I did reduce my regular size to account for going against my written rules and risk of bar expansion should AAPL tested the HOD. T2 - Continuation trade, but did not hold put for LOD because of longer time frame concerns. T3 to T6 - Based on my earlier feeling there is some buyer exhaustion going on, I was looking for sell signals in the indexes. I feel my calibration is off trading the stock indexes, especially NQ. The retracements in NQ are awe inspiring. I shall now focus on M2K exclusively for stock index futures trading. M2K ended up offering 2 prime, low noise setups. I missed the most profitable one with about an hour to go in the session due to a phone call I had to take. Did not take a couple of prime setups in LE because my “Brain” got in the way. At least I avoided getting whipsawed during a patch of choppy market action. I’m feeling confident in taking on more risk. Although it may be prudent to let my account recover more, if not fully, the key in my case is confidence. I can handle a string of losses, including the larger ones I would see by taking on larger size because of my belief I am trading well and that my sense of the market is reasonably accurate.
No trading today due to an earlier brainstorm and work. Using pain as an impetus to learn or innovate. By pain, as related to trading, I’m including the disappointment of missed opportunities. There always seems to be more time available to take a bad trade than there is to get in well for a good trade. This can create a negative selection bias. Therefore, for the most of us, there should be a lot of impetus to continually review our trades, contemplate, and backtest. What got me going this morning was the question of how to optimize my use of 8 in trend entry signals and 4 counter trend entry signals. Sometimes a market will move substantially without pausing for a “Reasonable” correction. Other times, one can enter after a correction only to face considerable heat. Even if that trade is ultimately profitable, if one often enters poorly, returns will be less consistent and leverage may tend to be underutilized. I came up with 8 variables to consider in an attempt to pick the highest perceived expectancy entry strategy for a given situation. Although this work is getting into proprietary stuff, several variables to consider are time of day, the correction relative to open, length of the intraday trend, among others. As an additional benefit to understanding the nuances of entry techniques, one may get a better sense of market action based on which entry techniques are or are not working. Follow the pain. Leaving a lot on the table too often because of “Overstaying” and or “Understaying” a position? There are definitely answers somewhere that may involve scaling, increasing trading frequency, reexamining exit strategies, time of day, misidentifying trading conditions and so on. An integral part of successful trading is done after the session ends: Regular trading reviews, contemplation, and backtesting.
My target is usually a test of S/R, but sometimes can be a pivot point such as the session open or previous day’s high or low, depending time of day and age of trend or if trade is opened off of a S/R test.
Got it. And what's your typical target on a scalp? Reason I'm asking is that it seems like fixed, 'small' targets is the way to go with scalping. Trading larger swings intraday is a different matter as you will usually have to sit through wide retraces and may see substantial unrealized profits go back to zero (unless you're breaking up the swings into smaller legs).
My goal is to get better at reading the trading day. Some days are tight-channelled trend days with small corrections, most seem to be trading range days, but usually with a good trend or two early in the session. After the early morning trend(s), if any, fixed, small targets for scalping is probably optimal, as you pointed out. Appreciate your feedback and will look to incorporate your idea into my trading plan, especially after the first hour of two of the session. Edit: Another idea is to target those instruments that are showing very strong or weak relative strength as the trading psychology behind that instrument will tend to be more polarized for more directional plays.
I'm not suggesting what you should do or not do, but if you're scalping I think fixed limits can be excellent. I know that's how a lot of scalpers works. Sure, you may leave money on the table, but if you're scalping, you're scalping, right? My trade management is partly automated with a hard stop and a fixed limit based on fill price. I don't scalp, so I usually adjust the limit and also work behind price with my stop order. I was mostly asking as I was curious seeing that you're a scalper, but seems like you're more flexible and try to take some larger swings too.
Scalping losses were $179 with a PL ratio of .573 with a win% of 36.3%. I spent three hours watching the market before my first trade. I noted at the time we started in a trading range then price moves came on strong with little correction before completely reversing. I figured market conditions had changed, but condition reverted to what they were. T1 - I liked MGC (Micro Gold) from a macro perspective, at least for a day anyway. For scalping purposes, MGC had a nice correction on a well established intra-session trend. I was stopped out on a time stop because well established trends that fail often end with an large expansion bar reversal. As it turned out, there was a little rally after I exited before the large expansion bar. Not long after, Gold reestablished its uptrend. T2 - Also liked QM (Mini Crude) from a macro perspective. I traded it similar to gold, but crude ended up reaching my objective with almost no heat. Too bad I was no longer in the position. I could have tried to enter again, but probably would have been stopped out. In hindsight, I could have used a normally sized stop and been more patient, but there is nothing from preventing me from attempting to enter on a second or even a third try. T3 - Entered M2K (Micro Russell 2000) after a correction and a momentum bar in the direction of an earlier trend. No dice. The correction had further to go, to the point were I thought reversal. T4 - Experimental trade on ETSY. I noted this stock was holding up to a barrage of selling in the general market and had the idea when that selling stopped, ETSY would rally on short covering. When this didn’t happen, at least in my very short time frame, I exited the trade. T5 - Now it hits me the market is having a down day? Looking at the chart, I’m assuming I covered because of the momentum bar against me after a minute on two. In retrospect, I was being too tight. T6 - MGC just has a nice run and I develop the brilliant idea that its time to go long? Gold entered into a consolidation, leaving me with little chance to profit on my timescale. I actually can identify when a market is transitioning from time to time. Not so much today. T7 - LE was yet another example of the above. LE moves a huge $.03 before I take notice. At least I knew what to do when it moved against me. T8 - Hello LE, remember me? I remember thinking to myself, why are they testing $.9500 again? My multi-second hesitation cost me an extra $70.00 or so. A “nice” way to cap six losses in a row. T9 - JPM finally took the lead performance wise, as did other financials. As has been the theme all day, I have been entering very late in established trends. I noted the offer side getting thick and decided to exit on any adverse price movement. I did not have to wait long. T10 - I chased VLO a bit, but at least it hit my objective of HOD. T11 - Third time’s the charm on MGC. Small charm. Couldn’t make make money buying hold at $1725.50, couldn’t make money on gold buying it at $1740.90. But was able to squeeze a little profit buying it at $1742.50. Hmmmm. I did have a bullish view earlier. Hmmmm. I really did not realize how badly I traded today until I went over my trades this evening. Wow. It is more than a trees for the forest thing. I was mentally off for some reason. One thing I did not do before starting my trading day was going over the expected ranges of the instruments I trade. This would have helped me with maintaining proper perspective.