A lot of you who post on the Trader P/L thread have such great results. I don't expect anyone (and wouldn't ask) to reveal any secrets about your strategies. But I was wondering if some of you would educate me, in a general sense, on what trading strategies you employ. I learned the business from an arbitrage and hedged position prospective. I think I suck at picking direction in the short-term and I envy those who are good at this. I'm guessing most of you are directional traders, either scalpers or momentum traders who use technical indicators to pick your entry and exit points for your directional bets. Would I be correct in this assumption? I am looking into trading prop and this is the stuff I feel I would need to learn to be successful. Thanks in advance to any of you who are willing to speak of their strategies, in a general sense.
My strategy could best be described as 'fly by the seat of your pants'. I trade off 1 minute candlestick charts, the only technical indicator I use is a 200 sma. I don't care for a ton of squiggly lines on the chart. My decisions are based on the chart and the level 2. I take a lot of trades and try to dump the bad ones as soon as possible. Doesn't always work out this way but it's a good plan. It's really not rocket science, but 16,000 hours of screen time certainly doesn't hurt. Oh yeah, being obsessed with all things market related all your waking hours probably doesn't hurt either. For trading other stuff such as Forex I use technicals 100% cheers, Red
". I learned the business from an arbitrage and hedged position prospective." ok " I think I suck at picking direction in the short-term and I envy those who are good at this. I'm guessing most of you are directional traders, either scalpers or momentum traders who use technical indicators to pick your entry and exit points for your directional bets. " i am a directional trader, in that my short term intraday trading is how i make income. but i do NOT use technical indicators. "Would I be correct in this assumption? I am looking into trading prop and this is the stuff I feel I would need to learn to be successful. Thanks in advance to any of you who are willing to speak of their strategies, in a general sense." in a general sense? i've said this before. i'll say it again. understanding risk management, game theory, money management, psychology, etc. is EXCEPTIONALLY important. it is NOT just about picking direction, so to speak.
if you notice almost all the guys making money on the p@l board have one thing in common. THEY TRADE A SHIT LOAD OF VOL AND I'M GUESSING ALL HAVE DIRT CHEAP COMMISSIONS OF .002 ARE LESS AND MANY ARE WELL UNDER .001. as red ink said it nots rocket science. i did it from 99-2003. its taking a shit load of shots. nothing more nothing less. when you're wrong as ink says you get out immediately. when you're right you let it ride.many on there are automated so it takes some of the actual fatigue of trading a ton away.when you take trades every 1 -3 minutes you have no fear as you know if you're wrong you exit usually with a small lose. you repeat the process over and over again and hopefully at the end of the day your gains are more than your loses. BUT THE WHOLE PROCESS FOR A MANUAL TRADER STARTS WITH NOT BEING AFRAID TO PULL THE TRIGGER ON LARGE SHARES AND NOT BEING SCARED OF LOSING. the problem i had was burnout as you get older. it takes so much out of you trading huge vol manually
fwiw, to clarify. i trade (intraday) mostly futures, not stocks. $3 per rd trip. 1-8 contracts a trade. futures can be quite profitable if you can develop setups with positive expectancy, and trade them with rock solid discipline. it's almost empowering taking a loss because you KNOW that given sufficient n, the setups you are using are profitable, and its just a cost of doing business