Great job sstheo. Quite an impressive start here and all in one day. You Rock. The naysayers here have no idea who they are criticizing. LOL Best of Luck and may the Force be with you.
yes I trade MGC intraday along with the mix of other things. Liquidity is more than sufficient for retail traders.
Hi Silly! 1) I use Multicharts. 2) My strategy is morphing a bit right now, but I will talk extensively about it later. I am a momentum scalper who has historically gone for 7 to 10 ticks on the NQ and YM. But this task needs bigger moves because of the additional fees. 3) I will be trading 7:30 am ET through 11:30 am ET, unless I have not met my goal for the day, then I may extend. But I am a full-time real estate broker who has other stuff to do. And there is great power in shutting down the platform and letting my tiny brain rest from "das blinkin' lights." 4) I have four monitors. 5) I do have papertrading set up, but I prefer using real contracts, emini or micro. 6) I have not yet tried MT5 with AMP, but you just gave me an idea - I haven't found my favorite indicator in a power language/easy language version. I might just try MT5!
again..fwiw..forget about mathematical indicators..total waste of time imo..I have tried loads of different setups using volume analysis..Sierra charts..Multicharts..CQG Qtrader..and a few more..all I can say is I learned a small bit but it was really of no use for trading the ES or MES..aka..total waste of time and effort the brokers of course want you to trade as much as you can..after all..that is how they make money..along with monthly fees..this is where AMP has the advantage..lowest per round trip cost and no monthly fees apart from exchange fees..which every broker charges is 2% per day achievable..well..it all depends on what transpires on the day..if you have wide bars on the 1 min then forget it..I have seen the ES move 10 points in seconds..not minutes..so..while volatility presents opportunities..it is also a double edged sword and can wipe out a lot of "good trades" in seconds..unless you have the right experiences to know when to sit on your ass and do sweet fu** all when you get bored..you will be getting close..I would not underestimate the power of papertrading..after all..if you can't make 2% per day with a papwrpapertr acvount..how do you expect to do it with a live account!!!!! of course..you have to do the exact same thing with your papertrading account..hence you must have rules and know what you are doing..it is common sense aftwr all..is it not
Agreed on the indicators, I trade off Envelopes based around a 7sma, ie short term direction and range, never perfect, but everything else I've tried has failed miserably. Got to have Goldilox market conditions, not too slow, not too fast or spikey cause spikes just knock out SL's in 5seconds or less and ruin your entire life.
I found one of my old mentors here on ET. He posted his ebook at the bottom of this post https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/scalping_my-way-with-acv.68098/page-25#post-4809151. In that ebook he shows several cluttered charts and then declares that naked charts are the best of all. "How in the heck do you trade without indicators?" I wondered when we were talking. But slowly he helped me learn how to trade with NOTHING on my chart but price. It is a powerful thing to see a price chart that way. (I have since gone back to just a few moving averages and a stop & reverse ATR indicator for stop placement.) With all the trades I take, I am sure I am every broker's favorite client! I need to reduce the number of trades and move of the "Brokers' Leader Board." LOL The current volatility is amazing, and I have learned a new term, "SOH" which is "sitting on hands" aka "doing nothing!" Being flat is often the very best position of all. The rules are paramount, and I will follow them, win lose or draw. Thanks for your input!
Ultimately, I am a contrarian trader. From the beginning in 2006, I have been fading strong moves using extreme optimism and pessimism as shown by the NYSE tick. This has served me well except in strong trends when I usually get creamed. After being sliced to bits by short falling knives and being mutilated at least a thousand times by very long freight trains going up, I finally figured out that I needed to STOP IT. Its actually okay to do nothing, and to let the momentum die down on its own. I don't have to try to get the high tick or the low tick, LOL. And most recently, I have learned that staying with the trend, especially longs, is an amazingly profitable method of trading. Imagine that! I took the exact opposite path of so many others-- I am an amazing range trader but suck at trends. Most people are great at trends, but get chopped to bits in consolidations. Considering that markets actually spend most of their time in range conditions, you would think that people would at least give it a bit more attention instead of simply looking for breakouts. So is my tendency to be a scalper obvious enough? My challenge now is to HOLD trades longer and scale out. "Every trade begins as a scalp" my first mentor Mike Reed always says. Now with the ability to scale out, the Micro E-minis and I are becoming good friends.
I just thought it funny when he says "better to use no indicators"..then in the strict rule examples has from MA to CCI the ebook is ok..as good as any of the stuff you might pay for..but it lacks precision..and it is precision that will make you some money trading the best way to learn how to make money..is..to lose small amounts first..if you risk too much you will obviously not last long enough to learn..again common sense to be honest..and I guessed it from the start..the last few months have really being a waste of time in relation to trading strategies..but not in relation to finding a good..safe..cheap broker (compared to others) that offers adequate tools to carry out the job will keep an eye on this thread and contribute some..but unless I see charts marked up with trades..can be live or papertrading..does not really matter as the strategy should be the same..then I will probably not hang around no interest in things that do not really matter when it comes to making some money trading!!
I have 2 monitors..one is a 50" Philips cinema tv (1920 x 1080)..the other I just got today and installed is an AOC 32" Q3277PQU (2560 x 1440) have re-arranged my layout to get more viewing on the MT5 multi charts with the AOC higher resolution and put the 6 day 5m line chart on the 1920x1080 set at native resolution for clearer image as you can see..not one mathematical indicator..volume or order flow information in sight..apart from the volume on the line chart to show when regular hours trading starts..prevents more clutter on the charts compared to using vertical timelines and grids