As a thought experiment .... if chop is defined as pure random price action, then money cannot be made trading it. No strategy or risk management exists to extract money from pure random action.
that's why I say betting on the chop is like betting on a coin toss. Betting on the trend is like betting on what your wife will probably say.
today's chop from 11AM PT was absolutely ridiculous. Lost 1/2 of my profits I made in the morning with crude, and russell.
Chop is one of the many difficulties that daytrading presents. However it tends to be less present between 9:45am and 11:45. If you did not make coin in the morning you probably wont in the afternoon.
Well I made about $1000 on 1 contract trading QM(crude mini) and TF in morning. On my passive portfolio, silver and gold ripped higher so I was happy and with good profits, laid off trading for a long time until I saw the setup below. (I thought I was being a good boy sitting and not over-trading....but...) Then from 11AM, I thought YM was going to go higher on a "bull flag" breakout as the 3 other indices also looked to breakout.......So I bought it but realized too many contracts traded on that breakout so quickly sold then it traded back below resistance so I reversed and sold short, then kept getting chopped up and down. I thought to myself, eventually it will go one way or the other. But NOPE!!! Chop up and down all my profits. I should have quit trading the YM after a series of losses in a row...but I let my frustration get the best of me. "I was going to beat the market" What an idiot. I got humiliated by the market. Going to be reading up on threads about chop all day now. Time to never make the same mistake again.