What is the 5 out of 100 figure rule? It sounds like a risk to reward ratio. ?? Scalping using my strategy, means closing the trade immediately if not in profit right away. If I have to lose 5 to 15 pennies on a trade that's gone wrong it's the only risk I take with the amount of shares I trade with right now. So perhaps my ratio could be 1 to 1, on a worse case scenario, (exception being an algo flush or anomaly). I think that there are so many ways to trade, I use a few strong stocks only and risk with 100 shares scalping doesn't accommodate the same r to r that other day traders or swing traders need to use. It is in and out for small profit each time.
Excellent points, your approach is based on lots of experience. I've found my most profitable days are when I trade extreme charts, biggest % gainers/losers. Particularly when I hedge/pair daytrade leveraged etf pairs like TQQQ/SQQQ BOIL/KOLD etc. Range, volatility is critical. Also, trading a ladder, sequence of trades to scale in. And ultra-tight. 07-.15 stops really helps.
"Make hay while it lasts". IMO it likely won't. Markets change. I was down that road once believing in small, quick in and outs are the way to go. As well as many, many others that make it beyond the initial early hard years.
I am of the opinion that you can trade any timeframe consistently, but once the volatility dies, you pretty much have to hold trades for many hours.
And what made you decide it wasn't the way to go if you wanted to come out green everyday and use a low risk style? When commissions were 7.00 per trade, it was a bit more difficult than these days I think to employ this strategy with a result of a profitable day.
Volatility dies - move to another market. That is why I trade Gold and Crude besides Indexes. Sometimes on occasion Currency futures.
Futures. I haven't traded stonks in 20 years. Either way my hope is to be profitable weekly/monthly/yearly. Daily ups and downs far less important.
For me, the key is to use high volume top tech stocks that are the top weights of the index. I think that will continue for the future. But XOM etc on a good day I don't rule out. When Google splits it's going to lots of fun
I think scalping and trend trading (what Ken described above) can both make money. Of course, market changes and it impacts scalping more severely. In other words, trend/momentum trading is a more sustainable strategy. I have been down the road of scalping and for some time was quite successful with a win rate of 90%+ but it didn’t last long. Now I am more of a big trend trading guy and feel it is more suitable for me based on my “edge”, which is the big picture view/sense. Again, everyone is different and there’s no surprise that some ppl are successful at scalping, etc. It comes back to the saying that everyone needs to find one’s own style and gets what one wants from the market.