FireWalker, Thanks for the update with details. Now I understand a lot more. You said... ...I don't know if I'm a scalper or a swing trader. But how does one know? Keep trading...you'll know sooner than later. You could sit down and do some statistical work on your past trades to help determine that. Lets say your goal is to be profitable or more profitable and not some sort'uv academic hobby. And your stats show your profitable via swing trading for points but unprofitable via scalping for ticks. Easy solution...only do swing trades or position trades. Also, I highly recommend you don't enter a trade as a scalper and try to exit it as a swing trader or position trading... Not good for the mental game of trading. Yet, in reality...right now your using tick charts...such is more suitable for scalping...not for position trading nor swing trading. Eventhough I do know some scalpers that identify what the trend is on a higher chart interval like 15min or 30min chart and only scalp signals that appear in the direction of that higher chart interval. Simply, the current path your walking on is via scalping based on your trading tools. It's extremely unfair to yourself and your attempt to be perfect via hindsight review after seeing what you could'uv gotten... Not good for your trading. Thus, instead of wasting a lot of energy and time trying to figure out how to catch a big trend... Concentrate on scalping. However, if catching big trends is an issue with you that just won't go away (like an itch that can't be scratch)... You need to put scalping aside for awhile and try position trading or swing trading... Trying to catch moves stronger than your scalp trades. Such would also imply you change your trading platform (no more tick charts). In my opinion...most of your conflict will go away once you know what type of trader you are. Nobody can walk you through that search...its all up to you to find answers to the specifics of your trade methodolgy. Also, when you said the ES doesn't trend nicely... That means you have expectations of what the ES should be doing. To me..ES does trend nicely. Small trend one day...large trend another day. Sometimes it trends up...sometimes it trends down. Just a quick look back...since May 10th I only see 4 trading days...May 11th, May 18th, May 20th and May 26th where between the high and low wasn't 10 points. That's 9 days of good price action based on range at least 10 points... You don't need to capture that entire range to make a living or second income... Just a little of it. In fact, the past few months the ES has given us some very nice volatility in comparison to prior months. The issue shouldn't be if ES is trending or not... The issue should be how are you adapting. Traders that adapts well to the ES... You don't see them mentioning any concerns about if its trending or not. Most likely because they are concentrating also on the volatility. Even if that volatility only appears 1 hour in a trading day while the rest of the day is boring...lack much movement or choppy et cetera. Therefore, via those 4 trading days I mentioned above... They still have some good point movements (trends) for an hour or so... Good enough during those particular times for someone to say that ES trend nice enough for them to pick up some points... Just a little. "Perfectionism is a dangerous state of mind in an imperfect world"--Robert Hillyer NihabaAshi
So what are you if: - When flat, you're impulsive and like the action of scalping - When in a trade, you're patient and like to hold - You know how to make money scalping but it's difficult to force the exits - You prefer a fair # of trades to even out the drawdowns (5-6/day min) - Haven't figured out how to enter a swing trade with a small enough risk level for comfort. (undercapitalized) - Belief that what happens on the 5min chart happens on the weekly and desire to one day transfer to the weekly Is that a scalper with issues or a broke swing trader who hasn't found his method? One thing: The market maker provides a spread and buys on the bid and sells the ask, but when demand overcomes supply he takes a hit and moves his game to another price level. The floor traders use pivots to buy on the "bid" and sell the "ask" (buy one pivot, sell the other), but when demand overcomes supply he takes a hit and moves his game to the next pivot. The swing traders use swing points to buy at support and sell at resistance, but when demand overcomes supply he takes a hit and moves the game to the next swing. and so on. Breakouts of the bid/ask spread is the markup phase of the floor trader. Breakouts of a pivot are the markup phases of a swing trader. Breakouts of a swing point are the markup phases of the next time frame up. It's the same game. Breakouts require discerning where the accum/distrib situation is on the next timeframe up. So which game do you want to play? In my case, I'm looking at tick charts to locate an entry on the swing trade. Tiny risk/giant reward. Maybe I'm skipping a timeframe and it should be: Tiny risk/big reward. An entry on the tick should exit on the pivot time-frame. An entry on the pivot time-frame would exit on the swing time-frame. An entry on the swing time-frame would exit on the daily. etc. Does this make sense to anyone? What kind of trader would that be?
Ok. What I see right now on the ES daily: Looking for a potential short setup soon. The smart move would be to cover at the recent lows and look for another setup, but I'd have strong desire to hold for what I consider to be a long term downtrend on the weekly. You'd say that's a scalper who wants to be a swing trader? Or maybe I was taught NYSE scalping but I'm really a swing trader who hasn't figured out how to swing trade.
FireWalker, Your overanalyzing this and intentionally making it difficult for you to find your own answers... Why ??? I've seen this done many times by other traders... It's not good for your trading... Something else is going on with you that you haven't discussed. Probably none of our business anyway. Good luck. NihabaAshi
I agree. I had a similar problem, I way overanalyzed everything and realized theres just a point where you have to accept that ES is simply not going to follow any rules. We have to set ours and stick to them. I know this isn't answering your question and I hope I don't sound patronizing but maybe you need to paper trade for a bit to relieve some of the performance stress. I found moving from the 1 and 5 minute charts to 60 min and trading onlythe 60 min chart really helped my trading. Seemes to simplify everything. I love to scalp 1 and 5 min charts but in reality it chops me to shreds almost every day and i'm stressed out sitting in front of a monitor all day hoping ES does what I expect.