Yes, I was going to comment on that earlier ... You are looking for the big daily trends, but the range trading makes stops trigger easily and you are eager to get in again, resulting in more trades than you normally would do. The first month of trading EuroFX I did around 100 scalping trades without a bad trade, but only 2-3 trades a day. LAter I went down to 1-2 trades as well, but sometimes 10+ trades. Lately I have traded a bit too much. Earlier I went for the bigger profits. Scalpers use many hats. ... market is "your pusher-man". FX fosters very addictive trading. BTW look at it go again, I think we're gonna have to get back in. Also, when I wrote about Refco - did you notice the 500+ best bid ... pretty muscled up action.
That's the problem. I'd rather go for the bigger trends, it's less taxing on my mental energy. But if I realize that it's becoming a range day then sometimes I'm able switch into take +8-9 and run away mode. I missed that +500 episode. Yeah, once in a while we get these big boys lining up at the same level. Are you looking at the crude oil? It spiked up and took our baby up with it.
Running away is the most popular art of self-defence. Taking profits with you makes you a winner, so selecting the right opportunities - with a ok entry, but most importantly a positive exit, is what I focus on. I glance at the QM chart sometimes, but won't let any QM moves dictate my 6E/EC entries or exits. It is of course one of the hot topics right now, but for me it's adding to my bias with regards to US deficit etc. There will probably be some short-term correlations making predictions become realized when traders act on them. BTW I'm acting on a knife's edge here shorting around here, and take mostly +2 pips. I find it quite easy to piggy-back profit-takers - but it's very small moves. I won't risk any mini-trend today. edit: now we have a 500 size lingering on best ask (1.2312) ... This is getting better and better, because there are consequences to showing big balls in FX. Sometimes you're outta your league, and can get absolutely crushed. Capping there can't hold for long, before someone see an opportunity to run some nice stops that hurt really good.
Dunno if someone else have been chopped up good in today's action and had that 250-lot there, but it made a nice little jump. I used to trade with tick/1-min EuroFX and 5-min spot FX, but now I trade with tick EuroFX and 1-min spot FX - even tick spot FX sometimes. It probably is linked to me doing a lot more trades too. I will have to evaluate the two approaches as market conditions change. BTW wonder if it had something to do with the lot that went roughly 3 hours ago .. nice catch in that case. Anyways, they're off the book s right now. edit: [17:05 EUR/JPY: Back Above 136.00 As Oil Hits $49 per Barrel] San Francisco, September 23rd: Oil has resumed its rally, rising to $49 per barrel and in turn, helping to take EUR/JPY back above 136.00. EUR/JPY is at 136.03 currently with resistance remaining at 136.50/55. USD/JPY is slightly better bid at 110.42 on the oil price rise. [16:33 EUR/USD: Oil Rebound Puts Topside Back In Focus] Boston, September 23: News that any loans from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would be tiny (only 1.2 mln bbl requested so far) and very short-term in nature (2-3 weeks) are helping push oil higher again. Weather maps showing Hurricane Ivan spinning around in circles in the Gulf of Mexico are not helping matters either. Bush also says he would consider send more troops to Iraq though the military has not requested them. The Iraqi PM says more foreign troops are not needed. EUR/USD has recovered to 1.2310. Offers remain from central banks at 1.2330 and above. Barriers are seen every 10-pips through 1.2400. [15:32 EUR/USD: Fresh Longs Breed Doubts] New York, September 23: There has been a rush to put on new long positions in EUR/USD in the past few sessions, but the market has covered little new ground since the knee-jerk rally following the FOMC announcement on Tuesday. There are still option barriers at 1.2350 and central bank selling seems to cap the single currency on rallies. Additionally the sharp slide in EUR/JPY off the session highs on reported bund redemptions set for tomorrow, leaves longs high and dry and worried about the lack of follow through. They can"t be happy after throwing everything but the "kitchen sink" at offers between 1.2330/50 and getting no satisfaction after prices failed to breach that area for a third consecutive sessions. Many momentum accounts have been blistered in the coagulating spot ranges this year and keep stoops tight since performance has been terrible and profit almost nonexistent. There are bids at 1.2280/90 that have stalled the decline, but stops below 1.2250 will send weak longs scrambling for cover.
QM sometimes pulls EC along with it. Today is one of those days. Some days there's a 0.8-0.9 correlation between them. I keep on switching sides. Today I'm working for CME and IB! For a while total ask became very heavy but now they're almost equal.
I was talking to a woman at my gym yesterday. She knows that I'm trading and asked me questions about it. I told her that I'd like to catch trends. She said then I have to wait for a year or so! When I told her that I'm looking for 2-3 hour trends, she looked at me as if I was from Mars I'm glad that I didn't tell her that I'm a scalper and my trade duration is 10-12 seconds!
Yes, there're days when oilprices take on more importance, but being a "tape-reader" and watching the orderbook and trades I find that most other non-direct relating info distracts me on my trades - or at least used to when I was trading ES. Now it's all about the spot EURUSD USDJPY EURJPY and EuroFX futures. Hehe, I have trades that last 2 seconds too ... sometimes they're really good trades too - like the 40+ pip I got around the NFP (I don't remember exactly how many seconds - but it was very quick). Just now I'm letting the market come to me and have very small target still. I think we're going to break upwards hard soon. Take a look on 10-min and larger timeframes; it's begging for it to happen. We're going 1.24+ in no time I think.
For your style, I agree that following QM closely will distract you. Less is better. Do you mean we'll break upwards today? I think we saw the high for today. But I agree with you that chances of going up is definitely stronger than going down.
No, I meant when looking on larger timeframes. As for today - I'm glad I'm not depending on chart reading for trading.
I managed to catch most of this last slide. Now, I'm back to OK +P/L. One more short here. Hopefully, it'll be the last one for today. Edit: I got my second short too. This slide made my day. +33 ticks net for the day after comish. I'm embarrassed to write how many round turns I made today--Let me just say I made >1 tick net per trade!!!