One-minute strategies

aucociscokid · Dec 12, 2015

What would you have us ante up?

The purpose of the post is for mentoring purposes only. We're primarily a group of academics, without trading experience, i.e. we can devise strategies (and have) and program them, but we've never actually traded $1 ourselves. (Banks, etc. traded billions using our strategies, but that didn't involve us.) No money is being solicited from members, other than we like to hook up with a prop shop at some point. "Live" trade our strategies (making money while we do), for a track record to establish a fund.

We're looking for "nut-and-bolts" advice as well. For instance: If we're trading large sums (several million every minute), is through IB the best place to do it?

Florian · Dec 13, 2015

Handle123 said:
You are absolutely right, I have developed two of them and I will die with them. Have them automated and programming codes change daily. There are reoccurring patterns in the marketplace and I trade off HFTs, only way the system fails is when HFTs ever stop trading as it won't generate signals. I am way too slow to consistently manually trade them as they occur in bleak of an eye. And unlike what people think, profits much smaller than what HFTs make, but consistent.

This is where most get it wrong, when you develop day trading systems, you should not be aiming for high win percentages, cause then this affects your money management rules. What I did 5.5 years ago was I radically changed how I day traded from making the most money I could to reducing "LOSING percentages", so all my systems now only test and trade on what it takes to keep them very low. What most don't realize though, lower the timeframe, you have to risk much more than you can make on each trade overall and almost all signals are waiting for price to come to you for reversion to mean. Where more money is produced is by violating rules that most can't do is by averaging down and going for plus one tick breakeven trades. You don't have freedom of those who trade longer timeframes like 3 minutes or higher of getting in later as where many who just getting in and I am getting out. So systems I have made, you generally out in three minutes or less. I am mentoring six guys right now on how I trade and one when he has time, even when he takes trades that are not there, has profitable days. But it is not like taking handful of rules and have money tree, you have to breathe Price Action to know when not to trade, when signals not to be taken. I can post charts all day long and most only get half the story as most are not educated in Price Action of support and resistance. Most think you wait for retracements and that's it and it is not, you have to micro-manage each trade and cause of stresses of this, best only to day trade first 75 minutes. The smaller the timeframe, the harder it is cause lack of time.

And I no longer recommend to anyone to day trade, people just too lazy to put in all the time it takes to become profitable, and why a good mentor has to be willing to work up to two years with someone, learning to trade is not like a weekend deal, and systems sold are a joke cause vendor usually not there a year from now. They sell usually parts of a Trading Plan or something that only works past few months. And I never allow a student to ever trade real time unless they can be real time sim 18/20 days, some never make it, but I don't want it on my conscious that I caused them to lose, they have to be as good as it gets in this business. And those who think no one that has a good methods would be willing to teach them for no fees is wrong, trading very lonesome business, you become a hermit and start talking to the cat more often, no one understands what you do and when you try to explain they look at you like please stop talking. Students have to bust their asses to learn, MANY hours are on them, much practice and sometimes spending two weeks on same chart often happens. I been day trading now 31 years, many ups and downs learning, and always open to learning what I don't understand.

Hey, baby it's cold outside, keep warm and Happy Holidays.
More...

How do you reduce losing percentages?
If you are referring to percentage of losers , %los=100-%win, so reducing that means increasing %win. If you are referring to average $loss, then the stop loss or uncle point would be close to your entry, so %los increases. So please clarify how you think on this matter

jcl366 · Dec 13, 2015

aucociscokid said:
If we're trading large sums (several million every minute), is through IB the best place to do it?
More...

Partner up with fullautotrading. I believe he's still looking for someone buying his strategy and trading several million every minute with it.

tradingcomputer · Dec 13, 2015

I am working on 1 minute strategy too, still back testing....

What do you trade with your two 1 minute strategies? (e.g. stock/forex/future?)

Thank you for sharing this insight.

Handle123 said:
You are absolutely right, I have developed two of them and I will die with them. Have them automated and programming codes change daily. There are reoccurring patterns in the marketplace and I trade off HFTs, only way the system fails is when HFTs ever stop trading as it won't generate signals. I am way too slow to consistently manually trade them as they occur in bleak of an eye. And unlike what people think, profits much smaller than what HFTs make, but consistent.

This is where most get it wrong, when you develop day trading systems, you should not be aiming for high win percentages, cause then this affects your money management rules. What I did 5.5 years ago was I radically changed how I day traded from making the most money I could to reducing "LOSING percentages", so all my systems now only test and trade on what it takes to keep them very low. What most don't realize though, lower the timeframe, you have to risk much more than you can make on each trade overall and almost all signals are waiting for price to come to you for reversion to mean. Where more money is produced is by violating rules that most can't do is by averaging down and going for plus one tick breakeven trades. You don't have freedom of those who trade longer timeframes like 3 minutes or higher of getting in later as where many who just getting in and I am getting out. So systems I have made, you generally out in three minutes or less. I am mentoring six guys right now on how I trade and one when he has time, even when he takes trades that are not there, has profitable days. But it is not like taking handful of rules and have money tree, you have to breathe Price Action to know when not to trade, when signals not to be taken. I can post charts all day long and most only get half the story as most are not educated in Price Action of support and resistance. Most think you wait for retracements and that's it and it is not, you have to micro-manage each trade and cause of stresses of this, best only to day trade first 75 minutes. The smaller the timeframe, the harder it is cause lack of time.

And I no longer recommend to anyone to day trade, people just too lazy to put in all the time it takes to become profitable, and why a good mentor has to be willing to work up to two years with someone, learning to trade is not like a weekend deal, and systems sold are a joke cause vendor usually not there a year from now. They sell usually parts of a Trading Plan or something that only works past few months. And I never allow a student to ever trade real time unless they can be real time sim 18/20 days, some never make it, but I don't want it on my conscious that I caused them to lose, they have to be as good as it gets in this business. And those who think no one that has a good methods would be willing to teach them for no fees is wrong, trading very lonesome business, you become a hermit and start talking to the cat more often, no one understands what you do and when you try to explain they look at you like please stop talking. Students have to bust their asses to learn, MANY hours are on them, much practice and sometimes spending two weeks on same chart often happens. I been day trading now 31 years, many ups and downs learning, and always open to learning what I don't understand.

Hey, baby it's cold outside, keep warm and Happy Holidays.
More...

vic84 · Dec 13, 2015

I don't think its that easy to have a one minute strategy, the market is very complicated and its not possible to have a strategy that works in every situation.

Handle123 · Dec 13, 2015

Florian said:
How do you reduce losing percentages?
If you are referring to percentage of losers , %los=100-%win, so reducing that means increasing %win. If you are referring to average $loss, then the stop loss or uncle point would be close to your entry, so %los increases. So please clarify how you think on this matter
More...

Most will look at breakeven plus one tick as breakeven, I don't, it is a non loss, it is a mindset that I am not concerned making money, I totally concentrate on not losing and still take 10-45 trades in 75 minutes. You might look at wining percentage as 90% but I concentrate on less that 10%, and I look at getting in/out at same price as losing trade. BUT when I average down, when you get an average price lower than original entry is how I can get a much lower losing percentages than most. But all the stats I keep are based on original entries, so I have a weekly stat of 7% losses but with ave down I can have 2% or less, since I lease seats, my fees very low so even one tick on volume adds up.
When I have developed before based on getting most profits I have to trade on longer timeframes, risk more money, stay in them much greater and having handful of trades plus trade all day long, I was going for the most money as "Trend is your Friend" but I reverted to what I did years ago on smaller timeframe. So now I use much smaller timeframe, trade 75 minutes, risk about same amount of funds, have many trades and average down, and average less than three minutes, I have very little patience as back testing shows me being married to trades turn into losers, history shows me by a certain time if it not profitable-get one tick. Also, I extended my knowledge of price structure more than most averaging swing lengths of first 75 minutes, have rules for mini swings, and work more on "Time management" that certain kinds of trades are given so much time where as the stats shows some trade are given one minute. So adding time to my Trading Plan has made huge difference in my trading. Time is my edge.

tradingcomputer said:
I am working on 1 minute strategy too, still back testing....

What do you trade with your two 1 minute strategies? (e.g. stock/forex/future?)

Thank you for sharing this insight.

trading.computer
More...

Between manually trading as I concentrate on Crude Oil 3.5 hours before day session of ES mainly and Nasdaq when I have time, have automated which follows 40 futures markets, and have my staff trade on fourteen futures markets, 90% of markets day traded are one minute. I have day traded ES the longest in my life. I don't like sitting there all day any more, but I have found patterns that only trade during lunch and only in PM session, so automation works nicely. I want my systems to be trading way past when I stop day trading and ramping up in option trading. I don't care much for forex, will on occasion trade them but prefer currencies in futures markets and often do option plays in SPYs, sometimes stay in overnite.

People I mentor are understanding why it takes so long to learn how to day trade cause even with a mentor, it is not a month or even six months, it is a great deal of information and much of it is price action of when not to trade, how to trade in chop or extended trends, narrow range is very profitable, probabilities, when to lower or increase risk, and often times the whys I have rules that I do. Most of what they have learn is wrong and was perhaps read wrong in chart books. They required to make flash cards on concepts to increase speed and at some point sim replay is increased in speed than normal speed, people don't realize day trading is speed of knowing the answers before the questions.

Sergio77 · Dec 14, 2015

jcl366 said:
With realistic trading costs, you would need about 90% win rate, or a similar reward/risk ratio for 1-minute scalping strategies. And there are also many other issues involved in trading on very short time frames:

http://www.financial-hacker.com/is-scalping-irrational/

Better take stories from one-minute traders with a grain of salt.
More...

Thank you for the link to article. This is very interesting.

Florian · Dec 14, 2015

Handle123 said:
Most will look at breakeven plus one tick as breakeven, I don't, it is a non loss, it is a mindset that I am not concerned making money, I totally concentrate on not losing and still take 10-45 trades in 75 minutes. You might look at wining percentage as 90% but I concentrate on less that 10%, and I look at getting in/out at same price as losing trade. BUT when I average down, when you get an average price lower than original entry is how I can get a much lower losing percentages than most. But all the stats I keep are based on original entries, so I have a weekly stat of 7% losses but with ave down I can have 2% or less, since I lease seats, my fees very low so even one tick on volume adds up.
When I have developed before based on getting most profits I have to trade on longer timeframes, risk more money, stay in them much greater and having handful of trades plus trade all day long, I was going for the most money as "Trend is your Friend" but I reverted to what I did years ago on smaller timeframe. So now I use much smaller timeframe, trade 75 minutes, risk about same amount of funds, have many trades and average down, and average less than three minutes, I have very little patience as back testing shows me being married to trades turn into losers, history shows me by a certain time if it not profitable-get one tick. Also, I extended my knowledge of price structure more than most averaging swing lengths of first 75 minutes, have rules for mini swings, and work more on "Time management" that certain kinds of trades are given so much time where as the stats shows some trade are given one minute. So adding time to my Trading Plan has made huge difference in my trading. Time is my edge.

Between manually trading as I concentrate on Crude Oil 3.5 hours before day session of ES mainly and Nasdaq when I have time, have automated which follows 40 futures markets, and have my staff trade on fourteen futures markets, 90% of markets day traded are one minute. I have day traded ES the longest in my life. I don't like sitting there all day any more, but I have found patterns that only trade during lunch and only in PM session, so automation works nicely. I want my systems to be trading way past when I stop day trading and ramping up in option trading. I don't care much for forex, will on occasion trade them but prefer currencies in futures markets and often do option plays in SPYs, sometimes stay in overnite.

People I mentor are understanding why it takes so long to learn how to day trade cause even with a mentor, it is not a month or even six months, it is a great deal of information and much of it is price action of when not to trade, how to trade in chop or extended trends, narrow range is very profitable, probabilities, when to lower or increase risk, and often times the whys I have rules that I do. Most of what they have learn is wrong and was perhaps read wrong in chart books. They required to make flash cards on concepts to increase speed and at some point sim replay is increased in speed than normal speed, people don't realize day trading is speed of knowing the answers before the questions.
More...

Thanks for your response and clarification.

lindq · Dec 17, 2015

Handle123 said:
What is the point of this post really? Sounds like a hidden "dog and pony" act to advertise something you are selling without having to pay Baron for being here. You made the post and have shown nothing, offering fool hardy words to con newbies is how I read it. Giving just enough to entice newbs. You want others to show theirs, anti up big boy.
More...

Agreed. Something is off with this OP. He asks 100-level questions, then responds with 400-level blather. On this, and other threads.

Xela · Dec 17, 2015

lindq said:
Agreed. Something is off with this OP. He asks 100-level questions, then responds with 400-level blather. On this, and other threads.
More...

I agree completely. I keep telling myself to be open-minded and not assumptive or dismissive, and to give people the benefit of the doubt, but that's increasingly difficult to do, in this case. On this, and other threads, exactly as you say. I may be wrong.