Monroe Trout, featured in New Market Wizards, almost never used actual stops placed in the market, but instead used alerts when price reached a certain level and would then evaluate to get out or not. Probably not a good idea for most day traders as ES can move fast, especially these days. I'm probably paranoid, especially since I'm trading small size, but I've been stopped out at the exact high/low so many times that one may start to wonder.
“They” know were your trades are placed .lol. I have a friend for many years that knows my accuracy of trades . He’s always saying the broker is watching your trades and is following them . I said your crazy but who knows with technology now a days . They could flag accounts with high win rates
Quite likely. If there's one defining characteristic of the ES market it's the number of false breakouts and deep retraces. IMO - this is also why this market can be so hard to trade at times, although there's been a lot more momentum lately than normal.
Doing the mkt 31 years i'm 100% convinced the only way to win in trading over time is proper scaling in and out. Obviously nobody is heads on accurate to the spot more than 50% of the time . So scaling puts the odds in your favor by getting you a much much much better avg price .Its kind of like when the mkts crashing. Your petrified to buy 500 shares as it might go down $5 more . But you know its a great co and a steal at the crashing price but you just can't pull the trigger. Instead of buying the 500 shares which your scared to do buy 100,100,100,100,100 or even 10 50 share lots. zero commission and a 10 times better avg price. Everybody knows about scaling but few have a real plan and execute it daily .
I do think scaling can be a huge edge when done right, but not so sure about averaging down unless you really, really know what you're doing? If not, it seems like a great way to exponentially increases your losses as once in a blue moon even the best trader will take a full loss on full size. Is it not better then to get stopped out and re-enter either at the same or lower prices? But adding to a winner seems more attractive. Particularly on a trend day. But I'm only thinking out loud here...
Understand i'm talking scaling at different pts and times . Like yesterday as an example. I was very very certain we'd have a pullback . Although i didn't know the exact top i did a 2 ,4,8 scale . Now I think of that total trade as 1 trade and put a stop based on my avg price . I don't look at it as averaging in a LOSER. Instead of doing 14 es short at 2830 i'll do 2 at 2830,4 at 2836 and 8 at 2844. My avg price now instead of being 2830 is now 2839 or so. My 10 pt stop is 2849. If not i would have been stopped out at 2840. Now the downside is if i shorted at 2830 the full amount and we tanked i have a nice trade. But since i'm scaling i only got 2 contracts in . But in very volatile mkts like the last 6 weeks that works great as the moves are huge and i can usually get my full scale in . In mkts that don't move much i can only get part of my full scale in but i'm ok with that. Multiply that by doing this 5-10 times a day and the difference is huge . I'm just giving my self better odds for success. Again everyone must trade according to their comfort level and personality .Yes this also works on adding to winners on a trend day on pullbacks within the uptrend.95% of trading is psychology and being in control. Not getting emotional and scared out of your trade. By going into a trade in smaller pieces it allows you to feel more relaxed and less anxious having smaller size at the beginning and scaling up in size. Again the key is thinking of the total scale as one trade and not 3-5 trades. The end result is all that matters .Instead of posting my trades which does nobody any good i try to share knowledge which can help people grill their own fish for a lifetime .
He manages this thread the way Trump managed The Apprentice and now manages the federal government: If he doesn't like hearing your truth, "You're fired!"