From what I understand, it's similar to what AMT2SWA said in that you have a mental position trade based on the dailies, hourlies, and 15-min charts, and then you live trade around it. Is that correct? So if I see a trend beginning in a certain direction, I scalp in the direction continously?
That's how I did it too. Very rarely did I just mindlessly collect edges without having an bias to which side I wanted to inventory. Of course that had it's pitfalls also.....
<i>"I'm averaging 8-10 ES points a day..."</i> End of story. Focus on that, and add size. Perrenial pikers fixate on maxing out points captured per contract. Professional traders focus on keeping loss contained, drawdowns smooth and averaged performance consistent. Then add size. When you start flipping 50-lot, 100-lot or 200-lot ES trades, you won't care at all about those little scalpies missed along the way. Keep doing exactly what you're doing... but progressively bigger.
Why not let your profits run? I took 70 points on one trade yesterday 4 es contracts. I saw no need to buy and sell and sell and buy when a trend is in my favor. If things get dicey/questionable on a chart and a trend reversal might happen I may close a trade and watch to reenter it but other than that it is best to let your profits run with the trend instead of buying and selling every point or two. It sure cuts the commissions down which must eat into your profits. Just my 2 cents Anyway good luck scalping Happy Trades!
austinp, I respect your advice and your posts have helped me immensely over the last 18 months. Let's be frank--the only reason I'm catching 8-10 pts/day is because the range is huge. I doubt I'll be catching this many once the range contracts back to 10 points per day.
<i>"I doubt I'll be catching this many once the range contracts back to 10 points per day."</i> What if ES returns to 20pt average daily range with two - three swings greater than 10pts wide? Can you still pick off +2pts ~ +4pts a couple of times daily in quieter, structured tapes? +2pts averaged = $100 contract daily 50 contracts = ? 100 contracts = ?? 200 contracts = ??? Worry about the present. The future will evolve in its own time. Keep your mind focused on today
It's really not the thing to focus on some pre-determined timeframe like 15 min, or hourly - it's much more about the "flow" of the market, for lack of a better word. On the floor, this is dictated heavily by the order flow since many locals are the ones taking the other side of the paper, or making markets when the brokers ask for a quote. I'm making the transition to the screen, and here it seems more convenient to put up 1 min, or 5 min or whatever timeframe charts, but I'm beginning to see that this really depends upon which instrument(s) you trade and their volatility, as well as the overall bias (if any) on a given timeframe. I think lescor's answer to this was good, and Pabst was a former floor trader, too, so he can add here where I'm struggling for words. Everyone naturally wants rigid "do this when..." types of rules, but that can be inflexible at times. My personal experience is that you adapt continuously and "manage" postions rather than have rigid rules, but others will have diferent things to say. You certainly could continuously scalp in the direction of some trend, but really the possiblilites depend so much on the way the market is moving (orderly, choppy, etc), liquidity at any given point (this probably isn't an issue in the ES, though I've not traded the ES) and on and on. I think most I've talked to eventually come up with a way of integrating many things into their own personal, discretionary style. Sorry I'm not being of more help here - again, perhaps lescor and Pabst can add where I'm failing to.
I have the same dilemma but i scalp...i didnt know you could position trade intraday witjout taking a big risk. For instance i traded mcd 4 round trips today...my last trade was 800 short and i got out after my position was well down and i got out breakeven at 59.26 at about 3 35pm well you know what happened of course mcd tanked 2$ right after.FKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!! My big picture thought on mcd was however,mcd has to go down since it rallied about 8pts since yesterday morning,is overbought and is approaching all kinds of resistance.