After using a default order size of 100 for 2 years I finally changed it to 500. This did wonders for my profitability. I went from making average net $200 per day to over $500 per day overnight. I'm a very short term scalper. For others who are too cautious to make the jump, give it a try, you might be very surprised. Now I'm mulling over going to a 1000.
500 to 1000....are you talking nasdaq or NYSE? NYSE....probably not much of a problem...on nasdaq IMO, that is a big jump my friend. Nothing wrong with slowly adding 100 shares at a time to your defalt size. Maybe Supermontage will help...but a lot of times on nasdaq it takes me three different price levels to even get in and out of 1000 shares on some of the stocks I trade. Cheers.
If you are trading listed, the size up to 1000 will make a difference as well depending on the stock....anything over 1099 will make a huge difference as you don't have the option of nxing outof your entire position. If you ever decide to get big, stick to the liquid stocks so you don't have your legs taken out by every scalper desperately nxing out. Some of the guys in my office have their default size set to 6000 at the minimum.
Thanks for the advice. I trade Nas 100 stocks, but I will stay at 500 until Supermontage and then make a decision as to whether to move up or not, and will take your advice to move slowly. I find with 500 instead of 100 I not only move more volume, but am slightly more cautious. It seems to work.
Hey, Im a Naz scalper too.....100 share default for years?!!!damn!!! I moved up to 1000s after 2 months. Currently I trade deiffernet defaults depending on the stock. For instance... SUNW 3000-5000 default WCOME 10000-50000 default CSCO 500-3000 default ORCL 2000-4000 default INTC 200-1000 default EBAY - yeah right! Its generally based on volatillty...between stocks, and at the time I am trading. Also, how well I am doing! If I have 6 winners in a row in 20 mins, I will up the default. Man 100 shares? How long are you holding positions? I generally do 450k to 1 million shares a day. Although when I trade WCOME, those 80,000 share positions add up fast and you can easily find yourself doing 3 or 4 mill shares a day...
I recently moved my default up to 400 from 200, but in reading these posts no clear advice emerges for Nasdaq scalpers. Some say 1000 is a lot, and Silverbullet say its chickensh*t. I use 400, but if I like a trade I will hit it three or four times to give me 1600 or so. Same with exits. What is the preferred size successful traders use on liquid mid size Naz stocks that allows them to get their price and still move fast?
100 for TWO YEARS? WOW! That is patience with a capital P! The size depends so much on what stock you are trading, and how important getting in at the one price level is, that it's really a pointless question. I trade KLAC with 1000 absolutely no problems whatsoever. There have even been times where I've gone 2000 (cos it looke so good) and gotten in and out at the same price level. QLGC, also easy to do1000. MSFT, I only usually take 1000, and I haven't pushed the envelope on it, but a few thousand shouldn't be difficult. EBAY's recent uptrend in volume also bodes well. 500 a pop is pretty straightforward. Sometimes I'll also take multiple positions in some thinner stocks at 3/400 a piece, like erts, expe, intu..
i used to trade by 1000 but the nasdaq stocks were almost all above 50$ and 100$ now that a lot are under 20$ ( AMAT, VRTS, CSCO, INTC...) i use between 2000 and 5000. On those stocks it is not a problem to in and out with 5000. SOmetimes it is not that easy with VRTS ( specially between 11h30 and 14h30).