You are probably right, I set very tight stops. I trade single name. Even when I traded live, when I placed a market order at open, often I didn't get instant fill. I think there was a line and when there was imbalanced? But I don't know, I am amateur retail.
My scanner today found a trade to earn a credit of 0.70. I tried 0.75 and got an immediate fill This is like trying the MidPrice first. If I wouldn't have got an immediate fill then I would have changed the order to the original 0.70. So what?
Understand that your NEXT trade and not current rolling trade is the most important trade can help. Don't hurt your chance to win your next trade. The single trade is meaningless.
I don't know. Maybe it was instantaneous (usually lousy too because bid/ask was wide at open) but the website (Schwab SSE) took its time to display the fill? Now I watched bid/ask, wait till bid/ask returns to normal to place a market order.
Very interesting comments sir. The standard way I traded was true "rolling", one after another like riding the wave, one exit became the next entry making the right exit most critical. Setting stop loss was difficult and tricky when that became the next entry. When I hit the rhythm it was exhilarating and printing money. But when I was out of sync, it was disastrous. I found the method quite profitable but very nerve wracking, and for me emotionally unsustainable. Current approach is picking my entry very carefully, make one trade per cycle based on what I learned from @volpri's posts. Less profitable because I don't ride the wave but much higher win rate. Overall profitable and probably more sustainable over a long period?
Yup. I usually view trading as a giant video game, expensive. I have 4 monitors, all charts. I have free CNBC (TOS from my Schwab account). If I put the TV show on, it's usually muted.
1. The trading system with positive expectancy has defined SL when the entry order is sent. 2. Follow the rules of the trading system (regardless the outcome of the trade ~ hit TP/SL/trailing SL. Compliment yourself such as "good trade" based on how discipline you were following the trading system rules, not on the outcome of the trade ~ hit TP/SL/trailing SL).
You sounded just like @padutrader. All other day traders on ET also told me to go, at a minimum, 5 minute charts. Why? I developed this day trading approach using 1 minute chart by accident and decided to stay with it until I could finish testing. I copy my other post and paste it here for you: Current approach is still 1 minute, but picking my entry very carefully, make one trade per cycle based on what I learned from @volpri's posts. Less profitable because I don't ride the wave but much higher win rate. Overall profitable and probably more sustainable over a long period? Next projects: trading 5 minute charts and trading butterflies. So much to do not enough time.