Hi, this is my first post on this site. I was origianlly a postition/swing trader of futures and options. I was pretty successful but it was a little to slow for my taste. I am now a daytrader who scalps the es market. I have a pretty simple method with about a 1.5 profit to 1.5 risk and with about 10 trades a day. Average around 7pts on paper and 3pts when actually trading it per day. My problem is that I would like to try to capture or at least stay with the trend longer during the day. I've read a couple of books/articles on how to do this, but none seem to work. I have been thinking of increasing the time frame (I use the 1min to execute trades) after I'm in a trade and maybe use Moving Averages or something. I've heard some people use trend lines, candlesticks and even just indicators to stay with the trend longer. I have no regrets about having to lose the 1.5 pts profit each time just to catch a 5 pt move once a day. Any help would be awesome. If you need any clarifications to this poste please ask as I am new to this. Thanks.
SOme ways I've been working on. Maybe using bands like the keltner and keeping original stop (trailing stop as moves) and using the direction of the bands and the outsidde of them for continue support. I've also known a trader who used bars on a 15-30min time frame. He would stay with a trend until he got a bearish (if long) or bullish) if short or a doji. I've also seen using moving average crossover once long or short (I do not enter with this but would use for confirmation of a continued trend). Also a trend line break and making target close to recent high/low the market is heading towards. ALso when it takes off and moves 5-10 pts, does anybody know (or know of ) someone who actually gets any of it profit wise (except by accident or a stroke of luck).
from casual observation of the ES 5 min chart, a 1 bar trailing stop will often times capture the big moves if the momentum is strong. For the 1 minute ES Chart ( I use this for my signal, I actually trade SPY), I use a 2 bar trailing stop, and once ES has moved in my favor by 3 points, I tighten it to a 1 bar trailing stop. Sometimes this will capture a 5 point move without giving up to much profit.
Thanks fan27 for the reply. I like how you included your parametors. I will try to throw it in and see what it does on backtesting. Would be a good method to get a fast spike type of move. This is one of the things I was looking to try to capture once in. Do you have any tricks trying to get into a spike (strong move)? Mine used to be looking for a small pullback but sometimes would have to wait for a long time and lose lots of potential profits. I was almost tempted to start just jumping in but (afraid of getting in at the peak and have a large potential drawdawn). Some people use the volume but I'm still not good at recognizing it in time.
I trade continuation patterns (flags,wedges,etc...) on the SPY 1 and 5 min chart with ES as my signal. I enter on the completion of the pattern so often times I am in just before a spike occurs. Other than that, I have no method for entering the market during a spike.